ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY FOR REAL COMPLAINTS NEEDS-BASED AFFILIATION TRAINING

The vision of Real Complaints is to improve the experience of making a complaint to public sector bodies through needs-based affiliation training in order to transform outcomes for both complainants and organisations. To fulfil this vision, the proposed project aims to develop and deliver a train-the-trainer strategy that will empower complaints managers to provide evidence- based communication training in-house and in-person. This will significantly enhance the sustainability and reach of ‘Real Complaints’ training. The Real Complaints project not only transforms understanding of complainant needs and the factors that influence complainant experience but also provides the solutions to address these challenges thus transforming outcomes. This has led to a collaboration with NHS Education Scotland to co-produce a suite of e-learning resources to be launched this year (2026). This collaboration confirms the value of needs-based affiliation training, highlighting its potential to improve communication and complainant experiences at scale. However, NHS Complaints Managers have identified that lasting improvement in complaints handling requires cultural change within teams and organisations, which is best achieved through in-house, team-based delivery. We therefore propose to develop train-the-trainer resources through a co-design process with established partners in the NHS (Scotland and Northern Ireland). This will significantly extend the longevity and scalability of the training.