Patient Experience and Complaints Manager

The Owl Centre; Pontypool; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 56,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid & Home working

25 days annual leave

Waiting Well charity involvement

Growth opportunities

Support for Autism & ADHD assessments

Job summary

The Owl Centre in Pontypool is seeking a Patient Experience and Complaints Manager to lead our complaints and patient experience service. The role combines strategic governance with hands-on case management, ensuring a patient-centered approach and compliance with regulatory requirements.

You will train teams, analyze complaint data, and collaborate with external bodies to improve care. The position is hybrid with two office days per week in Pontypool and opportunities for professional growth.

Qualifications

• A relevant degree-level qualification or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in regulated health or social care settings.
• Ability to write clear information for senior stakeholders and design/training presentations.

Responsibilities

• Lead complaints and patient experience function; maintain up-to-date policies and safe service.
• Identify issues from feedback; review and implement fixes with internal teams.
• Manage complex caseload; triage concerns for frontline or investigations.
• Draft high-quality written responses; communicate progress per SLA.
• Facilitate meetings with patients and carers for collaborative resolutions.
• Design and deliver training programmes and coaching sessions.
• Embed lessons learned into everyday practice from investigations.
• Manage complaint records using IT systems (NEST) with GDPR compliance.
• Produce performance reports for Executive Team, Board and external bodies.
• Collaborate with external bodies (CQC, PHSO, ICAS) and legal for reviews.

Skills

Communication

Presentation skills

Training design & delivery

Calm under pressure

Analytical thinking

Education

Degree-level qualification in Healthcare Management / Business Administration / Health Studies / Law / Social Science

Tools

NEST

Job description

This a hybrid role requiring 2 days per week in the office in Pontypool.

As the Patient Experience and Complaints Manager, you will play a vital, compassionate role in supporting the day-to-day running of our complaints and patient experience service. You will work closely with our patients to quickly and gently resolve their concerns, ensuring their voices are truly heard and that we use their feedback to improve the care we provide. You will work closely with the client journey team and colleagues across The Owl, making sure every enquiry is handled in a person-centred way that meets our patients' needs. While always keeping our patients at the heart of the service, you will help us maintain a safe, high-quality environment by ensuring we meet all essential statutory requirements. You will also support our wider teams by sharing meaningful insights and data, helping everyone to continuously enhance the services that support our community. Above all, you will be a dedicated advocate for our patients, confidently highlighting and escalating any concerns to protect their wellbeing and ensure they always feel supported.

What will I be doing?

Strategic Leadership and Governance

• Lead and develop The Owl’s complaints and patient experience function by acting as our designated Complaints Manager and keeping all policies carefully updated, ensuring we always provide a legally compliant, safe service that truly supports our community.
• Identify issues with patient experience and feedback to internal teams (such as the Change or Engineering teams) to review, create, and implement fixes to enhance the patient experience.
• Manage a varied and complex caseload of patient enquiries by triaging concerns for investigation, helping us to resolve issues either quickly at the frontline or through thorough, fair, and evidence-based practice.
• Craft high-quality written responses by maintaining clear, transparent communication with patients and their families, keeping them informed of progress and next steps so they feel respected, heard, and supported throughout the entire process, in line with our SLA’s.
• Facilitate supportive meetings between patients, their carers, and our colleagues by offering a safe space for open discussion, allowing us to collaboratively address dissatisfaction and find meaningful, person-centred resolutions.

Cultivating Learning and Empowering Staff

• Empower our internal teams by designing and delivering engaging training programmes and coaching sessions, building their confidence to compassionately resolve issues at the earliest opportunity and fostering a genuine culture of continuous service recovery.
• Collaborate closely with colleagues and service managers across the organisation by creating targeted action plans based on investigation outcomes, ensuring that any lessons learned are actively embedded into our everyday practices to improve the overall patient journey.

Insightful Data and Quality Reporting

• Oversee the careful management of complaint records using our IT systems (such as NEST) by accurately tracking all actions, outcomes, and timescales, ensuring we maintain strict patient confidentiality and meet all GDPR and Data Protection Act requirements.
• Produce insightful performance reports and dashboards for our Executive Team, the Board, and external bodies by analysing complaint trends, providing our senior leadership with the vital data they need to drive long-term, positive service improvements.

Safeguarding and External Collaboration

• Protect our most vulnerable individuals by proactively identifying when complaints raise safeguarding, clinical safety, or legal concerns, escalating these promptly through the right channels so that we always uphold our duty of candour and keep our patients safe.
• Maintain effective, professional relationships with external bodies such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), ICAS, and legal representatives by coordinating transparent reviews and carefully managing any necessary pauses in the process, ensuring we meet all regulatory obligations seamlessly.

You’re Someone Who Has:

• A relevant degree-level qualification (in a subject such as Healthcare Management, Business Administration, Health Studies, Law, or Social Science), or an equivalent level of rich, practical experience gained through hands-on work in a similar role.
• Extensive, practical experience working within a regulated health or social care setting, bringing a thorough and working knowledge of how to carefully navigate complaints processes specifically within these environments.
• A track record of thoughtful and versatile communication, demonstrating your ability to write clear, accessible information for senior stakeholders, alongside practical experience in designing and delivering engaging presentations and training sessions to a wide variety of audiences.
• A calm and objective approach to high-pressure situations, showing an ability to maintain your professional warmth and clarity when navigating emotionally complex or challenging conversations.
• A genuine dedication to continuous learning and service improvement, evidenced by your past commitment to actively taking on board feedback and implementing gentle, effective changes to enhance the care patients receive.

You’re Someone Who Is:

• Empathetic and constructively focused in the face of conflict, able to manage highly sensitive, complex issues by bringing a calming, professional presence to difficult conversations and gently guiding patients, families, and our colleagues towards collaborative resolutions.
• Highly organised and self-directed, capable of independently planning your own work and prioritising a demanding, varied caseload to ensure that every patient receives a thoughtful, timely, and high-quality outcome.
• A strategic and culturally driven leader, able to take The Owl’s wider vision for the patient experience and translate it into practical, everyday steps that positively influence how senior leaders and our frontline teams provide support.
• A great communicator, who combines analytical skills with excellent report-writing to turn complaint data into clear, meaningful themes that our Executive Team can easily use to improve our services.
• Grounded in regulatory knowledge, demonstrating a thorough understanding of NHS and CQC complaint standards, alongside strict data protection and confidentiality legislation, ensuring you always guide the team safely, ethically, and compliantly.
• Experienced in thorough, fair case management, bringing a compelling background in patient experience or investigations where you can clearly demonstrate your ability to actively listen, gather evidence impartially, and advocate for a restorative, person-centred approach.

What You'll Get:

• Being part a purpose led organisation, with strong values at the heart of everything we do.
• Working alongside our exceptional clinical leadership team and colleagues.
• The opportunity to do amazing work with our charity 'Waiting Well'
• 50% off assessments, making Autism & ADHD assessments more accessible for you and your family.
• Great leave benefits package includes 25 days of annual leave, increasing by 1 day after only 1 year service up to a maximum of 30 days, your birthday off, and a 'you do you' day to spend on yourself.
• Hybrid & Home working offering the perfect blend of flexibility and in-person collaboration!
• Growth opportunities, as we grow our teams.
• Protected time to connect with colleagues.

You’re Someone Who Connects With Our Values

• We are one team
• We are reliable
• We are creative
• We are passionate

Don’t be put off if you cannot tick all the boxes. We know that candidates can be put off applying if you don’t feel you are a 100% there, but we would still love to hear from you! We get that a diverse workforce makes a great workforce, this is the reason we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture where our people can turn up, be themselves & thrive.

We want you to be as relaxed as possible during our selection journey which may require an adjustment to our process. We encourage you to be open about what you need so we can adapt and allow you to thrive.

Closing Date: 18th September

Shortlisting: 22nd September

Interviews: W/C 28th September

We may close this vacancy earlier than the advertised closing date if we receive a high volume of suitable applications. To avoid disappointment, we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

A note on AI usage

We recognise that using Artificial intelligence (AI) tools in applications is becoming increasingly common. We welcome anything that creates a more inclusive recruitment process and supports candidates from all backgrounds to thrive.

If you do choose to use AI, we gently ask that you ensure all the skills, qualifications, and employment history you list are an accurate reflection of you and your background. The application stage is our first impression of you, so we really want to see your personality and voice shine through!

If you're invited to interview, we'll use the conversation to explore your background, experiences and motivations in more detail. Whether you've used AI to help shape your application or not, what matters most is that the content is an honest reflection of you and that you're able to speak confidently about your experience in person.