Complaints Self-Assessment Tool

Hi there and welcome to today's training session  on the MHCC's Complaints Self-Assessment Tool.  

This short video is intended to help you  understand how you can use the Complaints  

Self-Assessment Tool, what you can use  it for and what you can get out of it.

Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional  owners of the land on which we're working today,  

which for us is the Wurundjeri  people of the Kulin Nation. 

I'd like to acknowledge their  Elders past, present and emerging,  

as well as recognize that  sovereignty was never ceded.

I'd also like to recognize the strength of  people with living and lived experience of  

mental illness, psychological distress,  alcohol and other drugs, as well as  

their families, carers and supporters. I also want to call out that it takes a  

lot of strength to talk about your lived  experience, whether that be with family,  

friends, your community or through a complaint at  a public mental health service or with the MHCC.

My name is Jake McLaughlin, I'm the Manager of  Strategy and Communications at the MHCC, and I'm  

joined by Kirsty who is our Senior Education and  Training Officer. Many of you might know Kirsty,  

she has worked in the public mental health  system for quite a while in quality roles,  

both at the MHCC and within the public  mental health services themselves.

So, in terms of who is the Mental Health  Complaints Commissioner, the MHCC is a Victorian  

independent specialist body set up to safeguard  people's rights, as well as resolve complaints and  

recommend service and system improvements  across the public mental health system.

We're driven by lived  experience in everything we do. 

It's a really important part of our work  and we aim to drive continuous improvement  

in the public mental health system. The Complaints Self-Assessment Tool is  

an example of being driven by lived experience  because it wouldn't have been possible without  

our lived experience co-designers and the  input from people with lived experience. 

It is truly a product that  is built on lived experience.

What is the purpose of the  Complaints Self-Assessment Tool? 

It's for services to identify gaps and strengths  in their complaints process and culture,  

and access resources to particularly target  any identified areas for improvement. 

That includes examples from other  Victorian public mental health  

services of how they've approached  different parts of their complaints  

process and learning from complaints. The Tool also has a scoring system which  

allows services to track how they're  going over time and compare scores.

The Tool is anonymous and it can be used by any  

staff in services involved in complaints  processes, including lived experience.

How does the Tool work? 

There are eight stages that are covered by  the Tool, from making a complaint through  

to learning from complaints and reporting  on complaints through to procedure review.

There are five principles that underpin  the Tool and the scoring system in the  

report provides a score by  stage and also by principle.

In terms of the sequence of completing the Tool,  first you answer some questions and then you can  

access some example material that has been  provided by Victorian public mental health  

services, and then you can run the report. The reports can be run either at the stage  

level if you only complete one stage or  you can run a full report at the end.

I'm going to click on this link to the  tool and show you live on the website. 

There's a bit of an introduction there.  Click the link to access the Tool.  

Again, there's a summary there so if you're  completing it with other staff, that's a handy  

way to provide a brief introduction. I clicked 'Next'. 

I mentioned it's anonymous. We are hoping  to collect general demographics around the  

type of services completing it,  but you can also select 'Other'. 

I'll just say 'Adult', 'Metro' and 'Other'. I'll put in 'Whole service'. 

Optional, if you'd like to put in your name. We'd love it if you did, because we'd like  

to make contact around how you've found  the Tool and how we can help develop it,  

but it's completely optional. Then 'Next'.

This is the start of the Tool. We're in stage one here and you  

can see down here this little menu  is where you would navigate between  

the stages if you wanted to go straight  to another stage and skip section one,  

depending on what's relevant for you. I'll show you there's a slide later  

that helps have a look at what parts might be  relevant to your position or your interests. 

So within each stage there are statements -  the 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4, and then within  

those statements are some questions,  and it's the questions that are scored. 

So really it's just a matter of  going through these questions and, 

ideally with a group, but we can talk more later  about how you might go about it in your service, 

and just popping in do we partially  meet that or fully meet that. 

For example, 'Strategies are in place  for all consumers and carers to ease the  

fear of making a complaint' 'Yes', 'No' or 'Partially'. 

'Strategies are in place for consumers and carers  in the resolution process to ease fears during  

the complaint process' Might say 'Yes'.

'Confidentiality is assured'.

'Strategies are in place to address cultural and  

demographic specific barriers to feeling  comfortable or inclined to speak up'

'Strategies are in place to ease  staff fear of the complaint process', 

and 'As much as possible,  

anonymous complaints are addressed with  the same diligence as other complaints'. 

I'll just whiz through the rest  to show you the next stage.

So if I hit 'Next' here, it brings up the  report which I can also download as a PDF. 

It provides the results at the statement level so  you can see there were six questions in statement  

one and we got five points out of a possible six. For every 'Yes' response it's one point and  

a 'Partial' response is half a point,  so that's how that point system works. 

You can expand here to look at how you scored. There's an algorithm set up to also score the  

questions based on which principles they cover. Maybe you may not have strengths in a particular  

stage of your complaint process, but you might  really have great strengths in collaborative  

or lived experience involvement across the whole  process, and this is a way of demonstrating that.

At the end of the report there are resources that  you can expand here around 'Discussion points',  

'Constraints', 'Potential barriers'  and 'Advice' that we've collected as  

part of the consultation process. They also appear on the report. 

Very importantly here, the example  material for this section is a PDF  

that you can download where we've  collected examples from across  

Victorian public mental health services of  how they're doing particular things well.

Up here I can access a PDF explaining the scoring  

system if you need, but also access  to the definitions of the principles,  

which can be helpful in interpreting where  your particular strengths and weaknesses are.

This is where you click 'Save as PDF'  to download it as a PDF and save. 

That allows you to compare your results over time.

This slide goes through very briefly  what's covered in each part of the Tool. 

Making a complaint: we saw those questions in the  demonstration, particularly addressing concerns  

versus complaints, fears and barriers. Ways to complain: having a range of  

options of how people might complain, ensuring the process is accessible. 

How we handle complaints: checking the various  methods, boxes or email inboxes to where the  

complaints are being received, how  we record and escalate promptly.  

Responding to complaints: being very clear around  who responds, when and how, and who can close, 

and reflection on that response process  to ensure we're learning from it. 

Learning from complaints: looking at themes  that are coming up in complaints over time and  

reporting that to consumers and carers and staff, and identifying improvements out of that. 

Improving the experience: actually  making improvements based on some  

common complaint themes. Seeking feedback from people  

that have made complaints, to look  at how we can improve that process. 

and a periodic review of the complaint procedure  

to ensure that all of these things  are covered and there are clear lines  

of accountability in the procedure and  it's a continuous improvement process.

This slide outlines the stages of the  Tool and which stages might be more  

or less relevant to different staff in services, 

based on their role or interests. The bold ticks are those sections  

that are very relevant to a particular staff  member or role and the grey are less relevant. 

We know services are under a lot  of time pressure so this just helps  

pinpoint where the most value is going to be for  particular staff or also particular committees.

This includes the number of questions per section,  

also to give an idea of time required if you're  arranging a meeting to do the Tool in a group.

There are different ways the Tool can be used.  It was designed to be completed as a group in  

a service with those involved in complaints  and including lived experience in the room. 

However, it can be done, there's still benefit  to completing it individually or as a team. 

As I've mentioned, it can be completed  all at once or just the relevant stage. 

Also you don't need to complete the questions at  all, you could go in and download the questions  

or just grab the example material or some  of the training and engagement material.

This is some feedback from services. This particular service they'd completed  

the Tool individually and found the benefits  individually to informing their practice. 

This one particularly informed how they went about  

responding to a difficult complaint  that helped get a positive outcome.

This service did complete the Tool as  a group and found that the benefit was  

programs being able to learn from each other. Also, they had lived experience in the room which  

they found very valuable in identifying room for  improvement and respectfully challenging some of  

the views around what the service thought they  were doing well or the areas for improvement. 

There was some nice feedback from a lived  experienced staff member that they could  

sense immediately that the Tool was coming  from a lived experience from the ground up.

In terms of next steps, we would really  love for you to give the Tool a go. 

Jump online and visit our website and use  the tool either individually or as a group. 

It's really important to do a review  of your local complaints process,  

and the Tool makes it really easy for you to  take lived experience perspectives on making  

a complaint and the different aspects of the  complaint process, and apply it to your service. 

This can make a really big difference for  people with lived experience, consumers, carers  

and family members, who rely on your service  as well as staff working within the service. 

It's a really great step towards building  a positive complaints culture where  

complaints are embraced and seen as an  opportunity for continuous improvement. 

On that note, we're always committed  to continuous improvement at the MHCC,  

so if you have any feedback,  ideas or suggestions for the  

Complaints Self-Assessment Tool,  we would love to hear from you. 

You can contact us at info@mhcc.vic.gov.au. We'd also love to hear from you if you  

have any questions or would like some  additional support when using the Tool. 

But above all, we really hope the Tool has  a positive impact on your local complaints  

process at your service. and good luck!