Guidance on supporting information for revalidation

Compliments and complaints

The purpose of gathering and reflecting on compliments and complaints

To identify, confirm and build on areas of good practice, strengths and what you do well.
To identify areas for improvement, lessons learned and any changes to be made as a result.
To demonstrate you value patients’ and others’ concerns and comments about your work by making changes as a result of the feedback you have received.

You must declare and reflect on all formal complaints made about you, or your practice, since your last appraisal. Formal complaints are complaints received about you or your team that have been formally acknowledged or recorded by you or the organisation to which it was sent. You should also reflect on any compliments as well as complaints you receive outside of formal complaints procedures, where these provide useful learning.
you should focus your appraisal discussion on compliments and complaints that evidence your insight and learning about your practice, or that have caused you to make a change to your practice. You must be able to explain to your appraiser, if asked, why you have chosen these complaints over others.
At your appraisal you should demonstrate how you have reflected on your practice and what changes you have made or intend to make.
If you do not have any complaints or compliments in which you are personally named, you can reflect on other relevant local complaints or compliments that helped you to change your practice or confirm your existing good practice.

There are a number of sources complaints and compliments about you, or your team, may come from, in addition to formal complaints received by you or organisations where you practise. For each appraisal you should collect, reflect on and discuss:
1. complaints you might have resolved informally without the need for formal escalation.
2. Complaints investigated by regulatory bodies, for example, ombudsmen, inspection agencies in the four UK countries, or the GMC.
3. Feedback that you or the organisations where you practise have received through other channels, which identifies areas of your practice that are going well or may benefit from improvements. For example, from online feedback platforms or informal feedback from a colleague following their conversation with a patient.
4. Feedback about the team in which you work or the wider environment in which you practise, which has an impact on your individual practice by, for example, giving you a compliment, learning or action points.