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Key findings from report Local reporting on complaints is inconsistent and inaccessible All hospital trusts are reporting to NHS Digital on the numbers of complaints they receive; however, only a minority of trusts report any more meaningful data at a local level. Analysis shows just 1 in 8 hospitals trusts (12%) are demonstrating that they are compliant with the statutory regulations when it comes reporting on complaints. Staff are not empowered to communicate with the public on complaints: All hospitals must produce an annual statutory complaints report but they are only required to make it available to people upon request. Yet we found that hospital complaints staff were often not aware of the reports or who could access them. Reporting focuses on counting complaints and not demonstrating learning: Only 38% of trusts make public any information on the changes they’ve made in response to complaints. Much of this reporting is still only high-level, telling us little detail about what has changed and only stating that “improvements were made”.