Complaints Policy

How to make a complaint

If you have a complaint about the service whether clinical or administrative you have received from doctors or any of the staff working in this Practice, please let us know. We operate a Practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints. If you would like a copy of our complaints procedure please ask the Practice Manager.

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, in writing, addressed to the Practice Manager as soon as you can.

What we shall do

Complainants can expect an acknowledgement of their complaint within 1 working day of the Practice receiving it and a full response to the complaint within due course.

When we look into your complaint we shall:

• Find out what happened and what went wrong.
• Offer a meeting with those concerned, if this is what you want.
• Provide you with a response and an apology where appropriate and introduce changes to the way in which we work to avoid a similar problem happening in the future.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of patient confidentiality.

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. This requires a form to be completed. Copies of this form are available from Reception. If the person you are making a complaint on behalf of is incapable because of illness or is too young to be able to do so, their next of kin must give consent.

Complaining to outside agencies

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. This does not affect your right to approach NHS England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Care Quality Commission, should you feel unable to raise your complaint directly with us, or if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.