Practice Complaints Procedure
If you have a complaint or concern about the
services you have received from the doctors or any of the staff
working in this practice, please let us know.
We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS
system for dealing with complaints.
Our complaints procedure meets national criteria.
Your
complaint will remain confidential to members of the practice team
and those we need to talk to for the process of resolving your
complaint. Your complaint does not form part of your medical records
and is kept separate from them.
How to
Complain
We hope that most problems can be sorted out
easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the people
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,
because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.
If it is not possible to do this, please let us have details
of your complaint –
- Within 6 months of the
incident that caused the problem, or
- Within 6 months of discovering
that you have a problem, providing this is within 12
months of the incident
Where at all possible, all complaints should be
in writing and be addressed to the Managing Partner.
When telling us about your
concerns, it will be of
great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint,
by giving times, dates, places, people involved etc.
If English is not your first
language and you require an interpreter, please contact the local
Primary Care Trust (contact details overleaf) where details of
helpful services are available.
What we
will do
We will acknowledge your complaint within 2
working days of receipt and aim to have looked into the situation
within a further 10 working days.
We will then be in a position to offer you an explanation.
When we look into your complaint, we will aim to –
- Find out what happened and
what went wrong
- Make sure you receive an
apology, where this is appropriate
- Identify what we can do to
make sure the problem does not happen again
In some cases we will not be able to gather all
the information required within 10 days, especially if this involves
a locum/deputising doctor or a temporary member of staff.
In these instances we will offer an expected date by which we
will reply fully to your complaint.
If your complaint is about clinical treatment
you have (or not) received, the complaint will be passed to a GP or
nurse, who is able to make an appropriate clinical judgement and
reply.
Complaining of behalf of someone else
Please note that we stick strictly to the rules
on 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.
Taking
your complaint further
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
things right and an opportunity to improve our practice.
However, if you are dissatisfied with the result of our
investigation or our response, you have the right to approach the
Health Service Ombudsman to ask them to carry out an independent
review of your complaint.
Complaints
against non-practice staff or procedures
If you are unhappy about the
services you have received from organisations that are not under the
practice control, such as the district nurses, health visitors,
midwives, Out of Hours or any hospital services, please make your
complaint directly to the service concerned.
If you need help with where to direct your complaint, please
contact the surgery and we will do our best to point you in the
right direction.
Contact
Details
Patient Experience Manager
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