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 this practice please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

We hope that most complaints 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 or
• Within 12 months of discovering that there is a problem

Complaints should be addressed to our Practice Manager, Heidi Raza, who is our Complaints Officer.

Alternatively you may ask for an appointment with Heidi in order to discuss your concerns.  She 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.

We will acknowledge your complaint within three working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within ten working days of the date when you raised it with us.  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.
• 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.

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 his or her permission to do so.  A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

COMPLAINING TO NHS ENGLAND

If you have a problem we hope that you will use the above complaints procedure.  We believe that this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.  This does not, however, affect your right to approach NHS England.

If you feel that you cannot raise your complaint with us you should contact the Complaints Manager at the following address:

NHS England
PO Box 16738
Redditch
B97 9PT
Tel: 0300 311 2233
Email: england.contactus@nhs.net

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome you can contact:

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

Should you need to access support when considering making a complaint, there is also a free and independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service (IHCAS) which can be contacted at:

Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service (IHCAS)
Healthwatch West Sussex
PO Box 1360
Crawley
West Sussex  RH10 0QS

Tel: 0300 012 0122
Email:  ihcas@healthwatchwestsussex.co.uk
Website: www.healthwatchwestsussex.co.uk