Plain-English explanations of the technical terms and legislation used in this document.
- Accessible Information Standard
- A standard requiring health and care providers to give people information in formats they can read or understand and to meet their communication needs.
- Advocate
- An independent person who helps someone express their views and stand up for their rights, for example when making a complaint.
- Best interests
- A decision made for someone who cannot decide for themselves, choosing the option that is best for them.
- Care Quality Commission (CQC)
- The independent regulator of health and social care services in England.
- Clinical governance
- The system through which an organisation monitors and improves the quality and safety of the clinical care it provides.
- Complainant
- The person making a complaint, who may be the patient or a relative, carer, representative or advocate acting on the patient's behalf.
- Data Protection Act 2018
- The UK law that governs how organisations collect, store and use people's personal information.
- Duty of candour
- The legal duty to be open and honest with a person and their family when something goes wrong with their care.
- Equality Act 2010
- The law protecting people from discrimination based on characteristics such as age, disability, sex or race.
- Health and Care Act 2022
- A UK law that reformed how health and care services are organised, funded and held to account in England.
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014
- The regulations setting out the fundamental standards of safety and quality that registered care providers must meet.
- Independent Mental Capacity Advocate
- An advocate appointed to support and represent a person who lacks the capacity to make a particular decision and has no one else to speak for them.
- Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS)
- An independent body that provides external, final-stage review of complaints for the private healthcare providers that subscribe to it.
- Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009
- The law setting out how complaints about publicly funded health and adult social care services must be handled.
- Mental capacity
- Whether a person can understand and make a particular decision for themselves at the time it needs to be made.
- Nominated Individual
- The senior person responsible to the regulator for supervising how a service is provided.
- Notifiable safety incident
- An unexpected or unintended incident during care that results in, or could result in, significant harm and that triggers the duty of candour.
- Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
- The independent body that makes final decisions on unresolved complaints about publicly funded health services and government departments in England.
- Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)
- An approach to responding to patient safety incidents that focuses on learning and improvement rather than blame.
- Person-centred care
- Care that is planned around the individual's needs, preferences and wishes, with them involved in decisions.
- Records Management Code of Practice
- National guidance setting out how long health and care records should be kept and how they should be managed and disposed of.
- Registered activity (regulated activity)
- A type of care or treatment the law requires a provider to register with the regulator to deliver.
- Registered Manager
- The person registered with the regulator as responsible for the day-to-day running of a service.
- Root cause analysis
- A structured method of investigating an incident to find the underlying reasons it happened, so they can be put right.
- Safeguarding
- Protecting people's health, wellbeing and rights and keeping them safe from abuse, harm or neglect.
- Single assessment framework
- The structure the regulator uses to judge a service, built around quality statements and five key questions (safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led).
- Statutory
- Required or set out by law.
- Subject access request
- A person's legal right to ask for a copy of the personal information an organisation holds about them.
- Triage
- Quickly assessing a complaint to decide how serious or urgent it is and how it should be handled.
- UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
- The UK's main data-protection law governing how personal information is collected and used.
- Whistleblowing (raising concerns at work)
- Raising a concern about wrongdoing, risk or malpractice at work, protected by law.