Complaints Policy

Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the Doctors, or any of the staff working in any of our surgeries, please let us know.

We operate a complaints procedure as part of an NHS system for dealing with complaints.

Our complaints system meets national criteria.

How to complain

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 the most a few weeks. 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

Complaints should be addressed to our Reception and Patient Liaison Lead. Alternatively you may ask for an appointment with them in order to discuss your concerns. They will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and investigate effectively and in conjunction with extant legislation and guidance.

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

• Find out what happened and what went wrong
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
• Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again

We will issue a final formal response to all complainants which will provide full details and the outcome of the complaint. Further information is detailed in our organisation policy.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this. A third-party patient complaint form is available from reception.

Other suggested sources of advocacy

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your right to approach other advocacy sources, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

For further advice and help with complaints you can contact NHS England

What if I am not happy with local resolution?

We aim to give a satisfactory reply to all complaints we receive but if you are still not happy with the response, or the way your complaint was handled after the first stage, you can ask for an independent review of your case (second stage) by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS, they will decide if they are able to investigate your complaint.

Visit the Ombudsman website

Please address your complaints to The Reception and Patient Liaison Lead.

Updated June 2024