Feedback & Complaints

Making a complaint

Raise the Complaint with the Practice.

If you have any complaints or concerns about the service that you have received from the doctors or staff working for this practice, please let us know. We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible – ideally within a matter of days or at most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.

If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem; or

• Within 12 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided that is within 12 months of the incident.

The Clinical Lead will be pleased to deal with any complaint.

They will explain the procedure to you and make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.

How to make a complaint

You can make your complaint:

• In person – ask to speak to the Clinical Lead

• In writing – some complaints may be easier to explain in writing – please give as much information as you can, then send your complaint to the practice for the attention of the Clinical Lead as soon as possible

What we will do

Our complaints procedure is designed to make sure that we resolve any complaints as quickly as possible.

We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days.

Most complaints will receive a formal response within 7-14 working days of the date when you raised it with us.

Complex complaints may require up to 28 days for a formal response.

We will then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the people involved.

When we look into your complaint, we will aim to:

• find out what happened and what went wrong

• if appropriate, make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned
  make sure you receive an apology, where appropriate

• identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again

In responding to complaints, we may need to provide information about the patient and/or the treatment received to our insurers or legal advisors.

When providing information to these third parties, personal information that could identify or help to identify the patient concerned will be removed or blanked out.

When the investigations are complete, your complaint will be determined and a final response sent to you.

The final response letter will include details of the result of your complaint and also your right to escalate the matter further if you remain dissatisfied with the response.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we adhere strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality.

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have his or her permission to do so. We require written consent from the patient to confirm that they are unhappy with their treatment and that we can deal with someone else about it.

Where the patient is incapable of providing consent due to illness or accident it may still be possible to deal with the complaint.

Please provide the precise details of the circumstances which prevent this in your correspondence.