Patient Complaint Information

As a clinic we strive to provide the best possible service for our patients. However, we recognise that sometimes you may feel that we have not met your needs.

If you have any complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctors or staff working at this centre, you are entitled to ask for an explanation.

We operate an in-house complaints procedure to deal with your complaint. This procedure does not deal with matters of legal liability or compensation.

Our promise to you

We will:

• Listen to your complaint or concern;
• Respond by establishing a clear, appropriate plan of action, and provide you with relevant support and advice;
• Improve the service however we can.

How to make your complaint

We hope that we can resolve your problem easily and promptly, often at the time the problem arises 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 do so as soon as possible.  This will enable us to establish what happened more easily.

Please make your complaint in writing to the clinic manager, Marydelia Mitchell. If you would like assistance with making your complaint, a member of staff will be able to help you complete a Complaint Form.

Please be assured that any complaint you make, written or verbal, will be treated in strict confidence and have no effect upon the level of treatment and care that you receive at the practice.

If you would prefer a family member, friend or advocate to make the complaint on your behalf, they may do so and the centre will work with them, and yourself, to resolve the problem. However, whilst we can receive a complaint on your behalf we cannot provide any medical information to a third party without your authority.  To discuss or provide confidential information we would require a note signed and dated by you.  A member of our staff would be happy to assist you with this.

What happens next?

Your complaint will be acknowledged within two working days of receiving it.  This may well be a phone call from Marydelia Mitchell to you (or your advocate) to make sure we fully understand your complaint.

We aim to make a full response to you within the next 28 working days.  During that time we will conduct an investigation to find out what has happened and whether there is any action that can be taken to put things right. If at the end of those 21 days we are still conducting our investigations, we will notify you of the position and keep you fully informed until our investigations have been concluded.

As a result of the practice investigation we will:

• Make sure your receive an apology;
• Find out what has happened and what went wrong;
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this;
• Keep you informed of our progress;
• Identify what we can do to make sure that problem does not happen again.

Getting further help with your complaint

We hope that, through our practice complaints procedure, we can resolve your problem satisfactorily.  We believe that this will give us the best chance to put the matter right with you and the opportunity to improve our services for all our patients

Where the complaint cannot be resolved between the parties, external arbitration will be sought. Marydelia Mitchell is a member of the Independent Doctors Federation and will refer to the IDF if internal resolution cannot be achieved.  Should there still be an impasse then the IDF will refer the complaint to the Independent Healthcare Sector Complaints Adjudication Service.  ISCAS and its findings will be final to both parties.

You may also contact the Care Quality Commission,if you feel that your complaint is not being dealt with in a satisfactory manner, on 03000 616161.  (Note: the CQC will not arbitrate in a complaint, but require the provider to make their (CQC) contact details available to the service user).