This toolkit offers a mechanism to raise and manage concerns. The workflow ensures timely escalation, resolution tracking, and organisational oversight.
Legislative Requirements
Care Act 2014
Places a duty on local authorities and care providers to involve people in their care and respond to feedback. Promotes safeguarding and transparency.
Health & Social Care Act 2008
Requires providers to deliver safe, effective, and person-centred care. Concerns may indicate breaches in these duties.
Mental Capacity Act (2005)
Individuals have the right to complain about their care or the care of a loved one. Individuals are encouraged to raise concerns directly with the care provider.
Regulatory Guidance
CQC
CQC Regulation 16 – Receiving and Acting on Complaints:
- Requires providers to have an accessible system for handling complaints and concerns.
- All feedback must be investigated and used to improve services.
- CQC uses concerns to inform inspections, assess risk, and decide whether further action is needed. Even if a concern doesn’t meet the threshold for a formal complaint, it can still trigger monitoring or investigation.
Care Inspectorate (Scotland)
The CI actively listens to concerns and uses them to improve services. Concerns can be raised informally or formally; both are taken seriously. Concerns about safety, abuse, or neglect are prioritised and may trigger investigations. Feedback, including concerns, is used to assess care quality and inform inspections. Individuals don’t need to make a formal complaint for the Care Inspectorate to act.
Care Inspectorate (Wales)
Feedback and concerns, CIW encourages anyone to raise concerns about care services, even informally. Registered services must have accessible complaints systems by law. Concerns about safety or harm are prioritised and may trigger inspections. CIW uses concerns to inform inspections and assess service quality. You don’t need to make a formal complaint for CIW to act.
CQC Key Questions
- Safe - Are people protected from abuse and avoidable harm? Concerns often highlight safety risks.
- Effective - Does care lead to good outcomes and reflect best practice? Concerns may reveal poor practices.
- Caring - Are staff compassionate and respectful? Concerns often arise when dignity is compromised.
- Responsive - Are services organised to meet people’s needs? Handling concerns well shows responsiveness.
- Well Led - Is leadership open, learning-focused, and accountable? A strong concern-handling culture is key.
Key quality Statements
- “We listen to and act on feedback and concerns to improve care.”
- “We promote an open and fair culture where people feel safe to speak up.”
CI Health and Social Care Standards
Listening to concerns - A concern is defined as any expression of worry or dissatisfaction about a care service that may not meet the threshold of a formal complaint but still requires attention. The process must be easy to access and understand. People should know what will happen when they raise a concern. All concerns are assessed for risk to people using services. Investigations are tailored to the seriousness of the concern. Not all concerns lead to formal investigations, but all are reviewed. The goal is not just resolution but service improvement. Providers are expected to learn from concerns and make changes.
CIW National Minimum Standards
Providers must have accessible, well-publicised procedures for raising concerns or complaints.
- Timely Response: Concerns must be acknowledged and investigated promptly.
- Safeguarding First: Any concern involving potential abuse or neglect must be escalated to safeguarding authorities immediately.
- Record Keeping: All concerns must be logged, tracked, and reviewed for patterns or systemic issues.
- Learning and Improvement: Services must use concerns to improve care quality and prevent recurrence.
Statutory Guidance
- Duty of Candour: Encourage a culture of openness and continuous improvement.
- Safeguarding: Staff should be trained to recognise and escalate concerns appropriately.
- Listening, responding, and learning from feedback: Emphasise the importance of these actions, even when not a formal complaint.
HealthCare Guidance
Department Health Social Care
Operational Framework for Adult Social Care Intervention:
- Emphasises the importance of feedback, concerns, and complaints as part of assessing service quality.
- Key themes for guidance: Transparency and accountability in responding to concerns. Early resolution and proportionate investigation. Safeguarding and risk management as central to concern handling. Data and performance monitoring to identify patterns and improve care.
Scottish Government Health & Social Care Directorate
Early intervention: Concerns should be addressed before they escalate into harm. Multi-agency response: Health, social care, police, and other bodies must coordinate. Respect and empowerment: Adults should be involved in decisions about their care wherever possible. Continuous improvement: Feedback and concerns inform service development and policy.
H&S Service Group (Wales)
Concerns should be acted on promptly to prevent harm. Concerns may be informal but must be taken seriously and logged appropriately. Responses should match the seriousness of the concern. Concerns are treated as referrals and must be documented and escalated.
NICE England/Wales
NICE Guideline NG86: “People’s experience in adult social care services”
- Involving people in service design and improvement: Encourages providers to listen to feedback—including concerns—and use it to shape services.
- Providing clear information: People should know how to raise concerns and what to expect in response.
- Staff training: Staff should be trained to recognise, respond to, and escalate concerns appropriately.
- Respect and dignity: Concerns often arise when people feel disrespected or unheard—this guideline emphasises person-centred care.
- Reinforces the culture: Openness, responsiveness, and continuous improvement that underpins good concern handling.
Evidence-Based Practice
Handling concerns in adult social care is grounded in principles of openness, responsiveness, and continuous improvement. While formal complaints have structured processes, concerns—which may be informal or less defined—should still be treated with care and professionalism.
Concerns often signal early warning signs of poor care or unmet needs. Handling them well builds trust, improves safety, and strengthens the culture of care.
Concerns—whether raised by service users, families, or staff—are a vital part of safeguarding and quality assurance. They help identify risks early and ensure that care remains safe, respectful, and responsive.
Best Practice Principles
- Accessibility – Concerns should be easy to make, in multiple formats.
- Transparency – Clear communication about process and outcomes.
- Timelines – Prompt responses, with realistic timeframes.
- Learning culture – Concerns used to improve care quality and safety.
- Fairness – Impartial investigations and respect for complainants.
Toolkit Statistics
- The CQC receive thousands of pieces of feedback through its “Give Feedback on Care” (GFOC) service.
- This includes verbal and written comments from People using services, Families and carers, Staff and professionals.
- Informal complaints are not always categorised separately from formal complaints.
- The CQC acknowledges the need to improve how informal concerns are recorded and analysed.
Value Proposition Ideas
- Toolkit meets all statutory, regulatory, legislation and best practice.
- Workflow timescales can be matched to each Organisations Policy.
References
- Regulation 16 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 - CQC
- CQC Key Lines of Enquiry - KLOEs
- CI Health and Social Care Standards
- CIW National Minimum Standards
- Local Authority Model Complaints Handling Procedure (MCHP) by SPSO
- Social Services Complaints Procedure (Wales) Regulations 2014
- Statutory Guidance - Wales (2014)
- Care Act 2014
- Health and Social Care Act 2008
- Mental Capacity Act 2005
- Equality Act 2010
- Data Protection Act 2018 (GDPR)
- Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
- Scottish government for Health and Social Care Directorate
- Health and Social Service Group – Wales
- NICE guidelines (England/Wales)
- Scottish intercollegiate guidelines Network (SIGN)
DISCLAIMER: Radar Healthcare provides configuration templates and implementation guidance to support effective use of the platform. Any data protection examples or references are for general guidance only and do not constitute data protection or compliance advice. Radar Healthcare acts as a data processor under customer instruction. The customer, as data controller, remains responsible for assessing and managing data protection risks, determining lawful processing, and ensuring compliance with applicable regulations.