Commentary on Sections Part 2 –Standards Chapter 9 - Complaints Section 115: Complaints regulations: supplementary
252.Section 115 sets out supplementary provisions relating to both health and social care complaints regulations.
253.Subsection (2) provides for regulations to be made to specify such matters as who may make a complaint and to whom, the complaints which may or may not be made, and the procedure for making, handling and considering a complaint.
254.Subsection (3) is concerned with the making of a payment in relation to the consideration of a complaint. It is envisaged that regulations under this provision would provide for any payment to be made to CHAI or CSCI in respect of the costs incurred by it. Regulations could also provide for an amount charged in a particular case to be made subject to review by an independent panel.
255.Subsection (4) enables the regulations to make provision requiring persons or bodies handling complaints to make information available to the public about the procedures to be followed under the regulations.
256.Subsection (5) enables the regulations to authorise the production or disclosure of information or documents. Where it would not be possible owing to common law duties of confidentiality to disclose relevant information about a complaint to the body which is to consider it under the regulations, or to the body to which a complaint is to be referred for consideration under other provisions, subsection (5) allows for the regulations to make the disclosure lawful. This provision will not override the specific provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998, to the effect that information relating to an individual must not be disclosed without the consent of that individual unless it is necessary to do so for any of the reasons specified in the Act.
257.Regulations made under subsection (6) may provide for a situation in which a complaint raises matters which fall to be considered both under regulations made under section 113 or 114, and also under another complaints procedure. The regulations may provide that the complaint may be made under the regulations, and that insofar as it concerns matters falling to be considered under the other procedure, it shall be treated as having been raised in a complaint made under the other procedure (e.g. regulations may provide that a complaint may be made to an NHS body about both NHS and local authority services, and that the complaint about local authority services shall be treated as having been made under the regulations made under section 114). In this way, the complainant will be able to make his complaint to only one body, with both sets of procedures being activated. It is also envisaged that the two procedures will thereafter operate as far as possible in parallel so that for the complainant it appears as one system.