KO41a NHS hospital and community health services written complaints

The information from the KO41a collection monitors hospital and community health services written complaints received by the NHS. 

This information is published by NHS England on the Data on written complaints in the NHS page.

Further details on the current NHS complaints procedures are available.

NHS organisations.

Other organisations commissioned to provide NHS services.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) or organisations involved in the commissioning of NHS services.

Data has been collected annually from the 2022/23 year, replacing the previous quarterly collection.

The data is collected using a secure online data collection system called the Strategic Data Collection System (SDCS). The KO41a complaints collection portal is accessible on a specific SDCS link: https://complaints.sdcs.digital.nhs.uk/

Some organisations using third-party systems can access a spreadsheet, created automatically, which can then be uploaded directly into the SDCS. However, some users may not be able to access pre-defined annual spreadsheets as only quarterly versions will be available. In these cases, users should add the 4 quarters data together within a single template before submitting (see specific note regarding Brought Forward and Carried Forward complaints in section 2.1 below).

Data can be submitted via a manually populated Excel spreadsheet. The KO41a SDCS template is available on the NHS England KO41a guidance page.

Each organisation will be invited by email to make a KO41a complaints return on the NHS England Strategic Data Collection System (SDCS) at https://complaints.sdcs.digital.nhs.uk/

To access SDCS, you will need a single-sign-on account. If you do not currently have a single-sign-on account, details on how to obtain one are included in the SDCS user guidance.

If you have problems when submitting data via SDCS contact the collections team at: [email protected].