North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust
Complaints and Patient Experience Manager
The closing date is 30 June 2026
Full time, 37.5 hours per week. Band 6 £39,959 – £48,117 per annum.
Are you passionate about improving patient experience and ensuring every voice is heard? Do you have the skills to lead, influence and drive meaningful change from feedback and complaints?
We are looking for a Complaints & Patient Experience Manager to join our dedicated Patient Experience Team. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in shaping how we listen, learn and improve across our services.
As our Complaints & Patient Experience Manager, you will lead the trust’s complaints function, ensuring concerns are handled with compassion, professionalism and in line with statutory regulations. You will oversee the full complaints process from initial contact through to resolution, while promoting a culture where feedback is welcomed and acted upon.
You will work closely with senior leaders, clinical teams and external partners to ensure learning from complaints drives continuous service improvement and enhances patient care.
Main duties of the job
- Lead and manage the trust’s complaints service, ensuring compliance with NHS standards and regulations.
- Oversee the investigation and resolution of complex complaints, ensuring timely, high‑quality responses.
- Provide expert advice and guidance to staff at all levels on complaints handling and patient experience.
- Analyse complaints data, identify trends, and produce reports for senior leaders and Board committees.
- Drive a culture of early resolution, learning, and service recovery.
- Develop and deliver training programmes to improve staff confidence in managing concerns.
- Work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders, including the Ombudsman and advocacy services.
- Support improvements across patient experience, safety, and quality initiatives.
About us
As a trust we remain bold and ambitious with plans for both service and system collaborative transformation over the coming years to improve the health and wellbeing of our local people through high quality care.
We pride ourselves on ensuring our team has their wellbeing put first and as such provide a range of wellness opportunities including flexible working.
We are committed to the Greener NHS national ambition of becoming the world’s first “carbon net zero” national health system by 2045.
The trust is committed to ensuring that a diverse workforce is representative and inclusive at all levels and welcomes applications from all under‑represented groups.
The trust is committed to the Step into Health scheme and actively encourages applicants from the Armed Forces communities to apply.
Job responsibilities
- Act as the trust’s designated Complaints Manager, leading and developing a high‑quality, responsive complaints service that aligns with NHS regulations and best practice standards.
- Oversee the full lifecycle of complaints, ensuring they are managed consistently from receipt through to final response, with a strong focus on resolution and learning.
- Deputise for the Recovery & Experience Lead, providing leadership on patient experience matters when required.
- Triage incoming concerns, determining the most appropriate approach (early resolution or formal investigation) to achieve timely and effective outcomes.
- Allocate and oversee investigations, ensuring they are thorough, fair, evidence‑based and compliant with relevant policies and standards.
- Maintain regular communication with complainants, ensuring transparency, empathy and clarity throughout the process.
- Prepare high‑quality, sensitive and accurate written responses on behalf of senior leaders, including the Chief Executive.
- Facilitate meetings between complainants and staff to support resolution and restore confidence where possible.
- Provide expert advice, coaching and support to staff involved in complaints to ensure confidence and consistency in handling concerns.
- Develop and deliver training programmes on complaints handling, communication and early resolution across the organisation.
- Ensure staff who are the subject of complaints are supported appropriately throughout the process.
- Line‑manage and develop members of the Patient Experience Team, ensuring high performance and continuous professional development.
- Promote a culture of early resolution, empowering frontline teams to respond to concerns quickly and compassionately.
- Embed a service recovery approach across the trust, focusing on learning, responsiveness and continuous improvement.
- Analyse complaints data to identify trends, risks and opportunities for improvement, translating insight into actionable change.
- Produce high-quality reports for senior leadership, Board committees and external bodies, including thematic analysis and performance metrics.
- Work collaboratively with clinical and operational teams to ensure learning from complaints leads to tangible service improvements.
- Contribute to wider quality improvement, patient safety and governance initiatives across the trust.
- Act as a key point of contact for external organisations, including the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and advocacy services.
- Build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to promote best practice and shared learning.
- Represent the service at meetings, delivering presentations and briefings as required.
- Ensure all complaints processes comply with relevant legislation, NHS standards, data protection and information governance requirements.
- Identify and expand safeguarding, patient safety or regulatory concerns arising from complaints.
- Maintain accurate and confidential records, ensuring robust audit trails and documentation.
- Monitor performance against key targets, including response timescales, and take action where improvement is needed.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- Degree‑level qualification or equivalent experience.
- Knowledge of NHS complaints procedures and relevant legislation.
- Experience of managing staff and delivering training.
- Conflict resolution training.
- Evidence of ongoing professional development and further training.
Experience
- Experience of line manager responsibilities.
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the National NHS Complaints Procedure.
- Experience of working in partnership with a number of agencies.
Skills
- Strong analytical and report‑writing skills.
- Ability to plan work to ensure quality outcomes.
- Knowledge of safeguarding, patient safety investigations, and regulatory frameworks.
- Training in mediation, conflict resolution or root cause analysis.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust
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