If you have a complaint or concern about the service that you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in the Practice, please let us know. We operate a Practice Complaints Procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our 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 most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.
You should normally make a complaint within twelve months of the event, or within twelve months of becoming aware that you have something to complain about. However, these time limits may be waived if there are good reasons why you could not complain earlier and if we are still able to investigate the complaint fairly and effectively in spite of the delay.
Complaints can be made either orally or in writing to Mrs Sally Prior, our Complaints Manager.
What We Will Do
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 3 working days either orally or in writing and will offer to discuss the matter with you.
We will offer you a meeting with complaints lead, Dr Andrew Slingsby, to agree a timeframe for resolution and to reach an agreement with you on how you wish the complaint to be handled and the likely period for completion of the investigation and response to you. If you would prefer not to accept the offer of a discussion we will determine a specified response period and notify you in writing of that period.
We will aim to investigate and deal with all complaints efficiently and speedily. We will send you a written response with a report on the investigation as soon as reasonably practicable. If we are not able to meet the response deadline we have agreed with you, we will contact you to advise why and negotiate another timescale.
All oral complaints will be recorded in writing by the Practice and you will be provided with a copy of the written record.
When we look into your complaints, we will aim to:
- Find out what happened and what went wrong
- Advise you what we will do to put the matter right
- 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 their permission to do so. A letter signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.
Integrated Care Board
From the 1st July 2023, the way patients make a complaint about Primary Care services to the commissioner is changing. Rather than contacting NHS England, they will contact their local integrated care board (ICB). Our ICB is Hampshire and Isle of Wight
They are committed to ensuring that NHS services across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton are as good as they can be, and value feedback on your experiences. Your comments, concerns, compliments or complaints about any of the services are welcomed. They recognise the value that feedback can provide in planning for the future and in improving services.
The NHS can sometimes be complicated to understand, if you feel you need support, the Patient Experience Service can help you to guide your way through the NHS complaints procedure, assist with your concern and advise on any queries you may have regarding any services commissioned, or share any details of organisations that can support you.
Please email: hiowicb-hsi.patientexperience@nhs.net
Ombudsman
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 the services provided by our Practice. If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint at local level you have the right to ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to review your complaint. The PHSO is not obliged to investigate every complaint, they will normally review a complaint once it has been through the local resolution stage. Contact details for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman are as follows:
Telephone: 0345 015 4033
Visit: www.ombudsman.org.uk