A Journey Through Complaints Using Empathy 5th December, 2017, Milton Keynes

(The course started at 9.30 and concluded at 4.)

Training carried out by Carolyn Cleveland,

  1. What was your overall impression of the course?
  • Fantastic, excellent delivery of a difficult topic
  • Excellent – an extremely thought-provoking day – my challenge now is to embed this way of thinking into my organisation
  • An excellent day providing useful strategies and opportunities to reflect on how we act to situations
  • Fulfilled objectives to support how I do my role work
  • Excellent, Carolyn was fantastic, and the course was really interesting
  • Very informative
  • I would highly recommend this course to anyone working in the Complaints sector. The information conveyed on the day was invaluable to gaining a deeper understanding of the role of empathy in dealing with complaints. It also helped elicit a desire to connect more fully with those offering feedback on the service, and really understand their story
  • An excellent day well-paced and thought out. Providing a step by step story which due to its nature brought home the complainants point of view
  • Excellent training with very engaging presenter
  • Engaging and thought provoking. It was well planned and kept me interested throughout

2.How would you rate the content of the training day?

Poor / Average / Good / Excellent
10

3. Has your awareness of empathy improved following this training?

Not at all / Reasonably / Significantly
3 / 7
  1. How has your emotional awareness improved following attending the training?

Not at all / Reasonably / Significantly
3 / 7
  1. Have you learnt something new about yourself either professionally or personally?

No / Not sure / Yes
3 / 7

If yes, name one thing you are more aware of about yourself:

  • Not to take on emotions and somethings you can’t change
  • My emotional awareness generally
  • My own labels that I put on different people and what emotions drive or motivate behaviour
  • I am more aware of the unconscious biases that often guide my dealings with complaints, such as not placing as much value on a complaint whereby the person making the complaint uses poor grammar, or doesn’t articulate themselves well.
  • To be aware of the barriers that I can sometimes apply when conversations are tough which can get in the way of empathy
  • Maybe that I am not as empathic and as understanding as I thought I was
  1. Would you view someone raising a concern or complaint more empathically after the training?

No / Not sure / Yes
9
  1. Are you more aware of labelling and your own biases and those of others, having attended the training?

No / Not sure / Yes
2 / 8

8. Name one thing you will do differently since having the training?

  • Use eyes and listen without interruption
  • Not allow work pressures (time constraints) to influence my telephone conversations with patients and those raising a complaint
  • Create a deeper connection with the person making the complaint in order to gain deeper insight into the motives and messages behind the complaint
  • Reach out and ‘safeguard’ those raising a compliant to ensure we do not do more harm
  • Understand how the other person is feeling and what else might be affecting how they are feeling
  • Listening more to the person making the complaint rather that preparing my responses
  • Be aware of other things going on in that person’s life
  • Always think about what else might be going on for individuals
  • Not sure on this but due to what is going on in my life at present, but the training day was excellent so any ‘not sure’ answers is more to do with my own emotional state at present.
  • Listening to understand rather than to respond
  1. Do you feel that this training has been relevant to your professional practice?

Not relevant / Fairly relevant / Very relevant
10
  1. In your opinion, who do you think would benefit from this approach to training?
  • NHS Complaints Staff
  • Anyone in customer services industry but particularly NHS and all clinicians
  • GP surgery/frontline staff
  • Junior doctors and consultants would really benefit from this training. Student nurses, along with anyone who is involved in dealing with complaints and those raising them.
  • My clinical colleagues who are Heads of Nursing Teams/Services and investigate complaints
  • I think any sector could benefit from this training, however the course is very much tailored to the Healthcare Industry, so for this reason, I think it would be most valuable to those working in complaints management within the healthcare complaints industry
  • Reception staff in GP practices.
  • People working in services that are a little removed from frontline, who perhaps get annoyed complaints and don’t recognise that although there may be an inherent error rate in a process, that doesn’t mean it can just be – ‘well we have a process and it was followed’ – Perhaps acknowledging the impact this has?
  1. Would you recommend this training to colleagues and other organisations?

No / Not sure / Yes
10