We welcome any comments, complaints or commendations you wish to make about the Practice’s services. We see it as an essential element of maintaining a patient friendly surgery.
Please let us know if you have any suggestions, comments or complaints about the practice or our staff.
Giving feedback
To provide feedback:
- fill out a feedback form
- take part in the Friends and Family Test
- leave a review on the NHS website
- phone us on 01452 840228
How to complain
If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctor, nurse or any of the personnel working in this practice, please let us know.
We operate a practice complaint procedure as part of an NHS complaints system, which meets or exceeds national criteria.
We hope that we can sort most problems out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If you wish to make a formal complaint, please do as soon as possible – ideally within a matter of days. This will enable us to establish what happened more easily.
If doing that is not possible, your complaint should be submitted within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem; or within 12 months of discovering that you have a problem.
You should address your complaint in writing to Sarah Bryant, Practice Manager.
You can download the patient complaint form (PDF) and bring it to the surgery.
Please be as specific and concise as possible.
Complaining on behalf of someone else
We keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality (a separate leaflet giving more detail on confidentiality is available on request). If you are not the patient, but are complaining on their behalf, you must have their permission to do so.
An authority signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness or infirmity) of providing this.
A Third Party Consent form section is accounted for within the patient complaint form (PDF).
What we will do
We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have fully investigated within 14 working days of the date it was received.
If we expect it to take longer, we will explain the reason for the delay and tell you when we expect to finish.
When we look into your complaint, we will investigate the circumstances and make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned. We will ensure you receive an apology if this is appropriate, and take steps to make sure any problem does not arise again.
You will receive a final letter setting out the result of any practice investigations.
Taking it further
If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome you may refer the matter to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to review how the complaint has been handled.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
Phone
0345 015 4033
If you are not happy with the Ombudsman’s decision, then you can appeal directly to the PHSO. Details of this process can be found on their website: www.ombudsman.org.uk
Once the Ombudsman or one of their senior staff has considered the complaint and sent a response, their decision is final. Unless you raise any new issues that they consider significant to the complaint, they will not send further replies, however they will still acknowledge further correspondence.
Complaints to NHS England
If a complainant has concerns relating to a directly commissioned service by NHS England, then the first step is, where appropriate, for complaints and concerns to be resolved on the spot with their local service provider. NHS England refer to this as ‘informal complaint resolution’ and is in line with the recommendations of the Complaints Regulations of 2009.
If it is not appropriate to raise a concern informally or where informal resolution fails to achieve a satisfactory outcome, the complainant has the right to raise a formal complaint with either the service provider or the commissioner of the service, NHS England.
A complaint or concern to NHS England can be received by mail, electronically or by telephone via these details:
Phone
0300 311 22 33
Email
england.contactus@nhs.net
Post
NHS England
PO Box 16738
Redditch
B97 9PT
