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The purpose of this paper is to explore approaches to the regulation of healthcare complaints and disciplinary processes.

A literature review was conducted across Medline, Sociological Abstracts, Web of Science, Google Scholar and the health, law and social sciences collections of Informit, using terms tapping both the complaints process and regulation generally.

A total of 118 papers dealing with regulation of health complaints or disciplinary proceedings were located. The review reveals a shift away from self-regulation towards greater external oversight, including innovative regulatory approaches including “networked governance” and flexible or “responsive” regulation. It reports growing interest in adoption of strategic and responsive approaches to health complaints governance, by rejecting traditional legal forms in favor of more strategic and responsive forms, taking account of the complexity of adverse health events by tailoring responses to individual circumstances of complainants and their local environments.

The challenge of how to collect and harness complaints data to improve the quality of healthcare at a systemic level warrants further research. Scope also exists for researching health complaints commissions and other “meta-regulatory” bodies to explore how to make these processes fairer and better able to meet the complex needs of complainants, health professionals, health services and society.

The “patient journey” technique is one that has been used by health care providers to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of their service delivery. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experience of adapting this approach for use in an atypical context – the comparison of two systems for managing health care complaints and notifications. It highlights a number of relevant considerations and provides suggestions for similar studies.

The design and methods of the study are described, with commentary on the success of key aspects and challenges encountered. To enable comparison between the two systems, this study had a “paired” design, in which examples were selected from each system so that they matched on basic, prescribed, criteria. Data about each matter’s journey were then collected from administrative records.

While, overall, the technique provided rich data on the processes of the systems under investigation, the type of data collected (related to administrative/communicative events) and the study’s comparative purpose required consideration and management of a number of issues. These included the implications of using administrative records and the impact of differences between the systems on the paired design.

This paper describes an attempt to apply the “journey” approach in a context that is uncommon in two ways: first, in its focus on regulatory processes (complaint/notification handling), rather than care provision to an individual patient; and second, in its objective of comparing two different systems. It is hoped this account will assist in further development of this technique.

The Department of Health plans to reform the NHS and social care complaints arrangements from April 2009. This article looks at the proposals and considers some of the key issues.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the complaints procedure in health care in the UK.

The paper provides an overview of the current complaints procedure in the UK and whether it meets the objectives of a robust health care complaints system. A literature search was conducted in March 2009 on EMBASE, HMIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, HEALTH BUSINESS ELITE (1995‐2009) using the terms “NHS complaints” and “Negligence”. The reference sections of retrieved papers were hand‐searched for further relevant references.

There are several concerns about complaints handling in the current system. Poor handling of complaints typified by delays in responding to complainants' concerns, poor communication with complainants and inadequate record keeping have been highlighted.

The paper draws attention to the fact that there are still several concerns about complaints handling in the NHS and that it needs further improvement before gaining the confidence of service users. Not much interest has been demonstrated in this area and an effective and transparent complaints procedure will facilitate service user confidence in the system.

Complaint procedures are meant to provide an effective safeguard for users of services, but they do not always work well. Applies an analysis of three views of power to complaint procedures in mental health services. Identifies three factors which might affect the effectiveness of complaint procedures: the lack of credibility often accorded users of mental health services; the fear service users may have about complaining; and the difficulties they might experience in knowing what they can expect from a service. Uses this analysis to identify what managers need to do to ensure that complaint procedures are effective.

To explore and evaluate how hospital staff respond to patient complaints.

A teaching hospital with 1,500 beds in Taiwan was purposefully chosen as a case study of hospital response to patients’ complaints. Data was obtained through interviews with quality surveying managers (n=53), government managers (n=4), staff of non‐government organizations (n=3) and a senior social worker, as well as analysis of documents (September 2001‐April 2002).

Using the managerial‐operational‐technical framework developed by the researchers, the study demonstrated problematic aspects of handling complaints at the case hospital. It was revealed that: complaint handlers were not sufficiently empowered, information sharing was limited within the organization, communication among professional staff and with management was inadequate, the physical safety of workers had been threatened, and improvements could not be sustained. Moreover, it became apparent that the case study hospital generally responded to patient complaints in a reactive and defensive manner.

It is evident that the hospital did not use patient complaints as a source of learning that could have promoted higher standards of care. The case study reveals some of the constraints and identifies requirements for appropriate use of information and feedback from patients. The study raises some issues requiring further research to ensure more appropriate use of patient complaints to improve quality of care.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating effects of the broad personality traits associated with the five-factor model (FFM) of personality, on the relationship between qualitative and quantitative job insecurity (JI) and physical and mental health complaints.

Self-report data collected in a cross-sectional study from a heterogeneous sample of 469 Romanian employees was analyzed with hierarchical regressions in order to identify moderation effects between each personality trait, JI and health outcomes.

Neuroticism and introversion amplify the relationship between JI and mental health complaints. None of the other personality traits showed any significant interaction with JI. No moderating effects were found for physical health complaints. Quantitative and qualitative JI show a high correlation and similar relationships with other variables, but may not be part of the same larger factor.

The FFM has a lower contribution than expected in explaining the JI-health dynamic, with only 2 out of 5 reaching significance. The personality traits of neuroticism and introversion function as moderately strong vulnerability factors in the JI-mental health relationship, and may be used by managers in identifying employees who are at risk in situations when JI is likely to appear.

The authors offer overall support for the main effect model in the relationship between JI and health, showing that, while some broad personality traits buffer the negative effect of JI in a fairly strong manner, this effect may be very difficult to completely abolish. The authors further show that quantitative and qualitative JI are very closely related facets of the broader JI construct.

This study aims to examine the direct relationship between work–family conflict and psychosomatic health complaints among female physicians in Egypt. The study also investigates the mediating role of the negative affect on this relationship.

Data were collected using a paper and pen questionnaire from 186 female physicians, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The study findings revealed that work–family conflict is associated with increased psychosomatic complaints among female physicians in Egypt. The study also found that negative affect partially mediates the relationship between work–family conflict and psychosomatic health complaints.

Because of the cross-sectional research design, causal interpretations could not be made. Further empirical evidence is also needed to ascertain the generalizability of the findings to other contexts.

Organizations need to support their employees in balancing their work and family roles. In addition, employees need to understand how work–family conflict could influence their affect and should try to find ways to cope.

The study addresses calls for research on the relationship between work–family conflict and health in developing countries. It also responds to calls for research on the mechanisms through which work–family conflict relates to employee health.

Effective cognitive functioning elucidates the orchestrated interplay of diverse mental faculties in addressing daily tasks, potentially indicative of an improved state of an individual’s health. Linked to this is the potential role of life satisfaction, which may aid individuals in better managing their health-related challenges. The purpose this study is to examine whether the cognitive functioning and life satisfaction levels of elderly individuals serve as predictors of their subjective health complaints.

The research involved a cohort of 126 elderly community residents. The assessment tools used encompassed a socio-demographic questionnaire, the mini-mental state examination (MMSE), the scale of subjective health complaints and a life satisfaction scale.

The findings reveal that both cognitive functioning and life satisfaction are predictive variables for subjective health complaints, validated in both the original sample and simulated samples.

This study’s innovation lies in highlighting the importance of cognitive functioning and life satisfaction among the elderly population as explanatory factors for subjective health complaints. Consequently, these dimensions warrant consideration in specialized intervention programs aimed at promoting the health and quality of life among the elderly.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect crossover effects of leaders’ exhaustion on followers’ somatic complaints by testing leaders’ health-oriented behavior toward employees as a possible underlying mechanism.

A two-wave online study using data from different sources was conducted. In a sample of 106 leaders and followers, leaders were paired with one or two followers. Leaders rated their level of exhaustion at Time 1, and followers rated their leaders’ health-oriented leadership behavior (i.e. StaffCare behavior) and their own level of somatic complaints three months later (Time 2).

Results provided evidence of an indirect crossover effect from leaders’ exhaustion to followers’ somatic complaints through StaffCare behavior. There was no direct crossover effect.

Findings suggest that organizations should attend to leaders’ health as a means to allow for StaffCare behavior and thus protect employee health.

StaffCare behavior represents a new concept that focuses on health-related aspects of leadership. This is the first study to take an in-depth look at the question of how this leadership behavior is tied to crossover from leader exhaustion to follower health.