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 the NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.

How to complain

We hope 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. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within 6 months of the incident
• Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident

Complaints should be addressed to the Practice Manager or any of the doctors. Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with the Practice Manager in order to discuss your concerns. The complaints procedure will be explained to you, and your concerns will be dealt with promptly. Please be as specific as possible with your complaint.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the people involved. When we look into your complaint, we shall aim to:

• Find out what went wrong
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned.
• Make sure you receive an apology where appropriate.
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not occur again.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

We do keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality. If you are doing this, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person will be needed, unless they are incapable (due to illness) of providing this.

Complaining to the Primary Care Trust

We hope that you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong. If you feel unable to raise your complaint with the Practice you can contact the local Primary Care Trust on 01962 763940 for further advice.

Violence

We have a zero tolerance policy to anyone who is verbally or physically abusive to our staff. Patients who act in this manner will be removed from the patient list.