Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Head of Complaints, Band 8a

The closing date is 27 April 2026

Job summary

The post holder will be responsible for overseeing the Complaints services across the Trust, including line managing the teams, to ensure that the Trust complies with all external requirements and best practice in these areas. This will include robust investigations and timely responses, whilst working in partnership with patient safety colleagues, governance teams, senior managers and Trust staff. Oversee and lead responses to high level complaints and ensure they are responded to appropriately and within timeframe e.g. Public Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), Members of Parliament (MPs) and the Care Quality Commission. They will create responsive strategies to ensure that patient feedback is responded to and acted upon to improve services and will engage with senior staff across the Trust to ensure that these are implemented locally. They will be responsible for accurate data capture, analysis and recording of complaints and PALS data in the complaints management system and associated activity/performance dashboards, creating new systems when required. They will ensure that all complaints are logged, investigated and answered with specified timescales in accordance with the Trust and NHSE and legal and regulatory standards

Main duties of the job

- The Trust's expert on NHS complaints handling, providing specialist advice to senior managers and Board members.

-Critical role providing leadership to the Trust's Complaints Team, including a wide range of monitoring and reporting responsibilities to Governance, Delivery and Assurance Groups, ensuring delivery of a consistently excellent complaints service to the Trust's patients, their families and carers and members of the public.

- Co-develop and lead complaints-related service improvement initiatives with Associate Directors (Safety, Experience and Effectiveness)

- Vital role in identifying and cascading organisational learning from complaints.

- Key point of operational interface between Divisions and the corporate complaints function.

About us

Joining our Complaints Team means being part of a supportive, values-driven service that plays a vital role in listening to patients and families, responding with compassion, and turning concerns into meaningful learning and improvement. You will work alongside experienced colleagues who care deeply about fairness, kindness and doing the right thing--supporting people at difficult moments while helping the Trust improve the quality and safety of care. This is a role where your empathy, judgement and professionalism will genuinely make a difference.

Date posted

13 April 2026

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8a

Salary

£57,528 to £64,750 a year (pa, pro rata if part-time)

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

6 months

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

318-26-T0231

Job locations

Gloucestershire Royal Hospital

Great Western Road

Gloucester

GL1 3NN

Job description

Job responsibilities

- Deal with delicate and confidential matters using sensitivity and judgement honed by significant experience of working in NHS complaints and customer care.

- Provide complaints expertise to staff at all levels of the organisation, including in complaints management, identification of themes and trends, policies and processes and statistical analysis.

- Use patient complaints, enquiries, and feedback to monitor the quality of hospital services, identify any problem areas and support the divisions with improvement interventions.

- Produce timely and reliable complaints data for a range of Corporate and Divisional dashboards and meetings

- To ensure responses for complaints where there is a Coroners Inquest align with the process and with the requirements of the Coroner and the Coroners Officer are appropriate and manage relevant members of staff in respect of managing such complaints.

- Ensure alignment with incident or complaints investigations

- Responsible for the accurate maintenance of all data entered into the complaints database (DATIX); including manipulation in order to provide regular feedback and reports which facilitate the identification of trends, action required and shared learning points and other reports on request. Monitor the database to ensure that it provides the information required for reporting complaints received by the Trust

- Act as chair for contentious meetings making independent, on the spot, decisions to negotiate and resolve concerns and issues that are sensitive and serious in nature, in situations and when staff and patients will not be in agreement

- Provide detailed information as stipulated within tight timescales in response to requests made by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

- Provide high quality data for a range of regulatory and governance purposes (e.g., annual quality reports, CQC inspections, Clinical Commissioning Group contracts)

- Write the Trusts Quarterly and Annual Complaints reports for the senior governance committees, including Trust Board.

- Liaise with senior managers to identify and address service-level performance issues identified through patient feedback and complaints.

- Promote the importance of welcoming complaints and feedback from patients and the public in monitoring and improving hospital services.

- Take the lead for collecting and collating evidence to demonstrate compliance with the Care Quality Commissions standards on complaints management.

- Investigate and respond to Complaints relating to Complaint Handling

- Ensure appropriate mechanisms are in place to receive and act upon regular feedback from people about their experiences of using the Trusts complaints service both staff and complainants