Conflicting Obligations: Role Conflict among Health Care Complaints Managers

Abstract

This article draws on selected findings from a study which explored the conflicts and tensions inherent in the role of UK National Health Service (NHS) complaints managers. It is argued that balancing loyalties to the complained about health service organisation against the needs of complainants leads to an inherent contradiction in the role of the complaints manager. This proposition is supported by theoretical literature on complaints handlers, administrators and social actors drawn from three social science disciplines: socio-legal studies, public administration and sociology/social psychology. The study was conducted between 1999 and 2002 in the London/South East region of the UK and uses a qualitative approach. It is based on in-depth telephone interviews recorded with thirty NHS complaints managers. The focus here is on the interviews conducted with twenty-one of these complaints managers (those complaints managers who worked in NHS hospitals as opposed to the primary care sector). Three key areas emerged as the principal findings of the research: 1. The complaints manager's role encompasses inherent contradictions; 2. complaints managers exhibited very different responses/reactions to the inherent contradictions in their role; 3. there were different types of complaints managers. This article focuses on the first finding, that is, the complaints manager's role encompasses inherent contradictions. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs080187