Comments

We welcome your views and constructive suggestions which will help us improve our service to you. It is good for the morale of all our staff to hear also of when we have provided a good service and will motivate us to try even harder for you.

Practice Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint about the service you have received from any of the staff working at this practice, please let us know.

We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our procedure meets national criteria.

Our feedback and complaints leaflet, available from our reception staff, explains the process and includes a form to complete.

If you feel the need to complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, preferably 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, as 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 that caused the problem, or
• Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem

Complaints should be addressed to the assistant practice manager in the first instance, or to Dr Adeola Abdul.

Jade Meredith will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure your concerns are dealt with promptly.

It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

Mechanism for dealing with a complaint

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aimed to have looked into your complaint within 20 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 happened and what went wrong
• Agree a plan on how your complaint will be dealt with and the timescales involved
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
• Make sure you receive an apology where that is appropriate
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly within the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have 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 someone outside the practice

We hope that if you have a grievance you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of correcting whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice.

Nevertheless, this does not affect your right to seek an independent service. The Nottingham/Derby Local Area Team (LAT) handle complaints through the NHS Commissioning Board Contact Centre.

You can contact them on 0300 311 2233.

The Health Service Ombudsman

If you remain unhappy after everything has been done to try to resolve your concern or complaint you have the right to approach the Ombudsman.

Telephone: 0345 015 4033

Email: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk

Write:

Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP