Covid-19 Out of Hours News

Boyden Close, Nunnery Green, Wickhambrook, Suffolk, CB8 8XU

Tel: 01440 820140

Contact Details

SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS

Your complaint or concern

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 that meets national criteria for dealing with complaints.

How to complain

We hope 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 formal complaint, you should do so, preferably in writing  as soon as possible after the event and ideally within a matter of days,giving as much detail as you can, as this helps us to establish what happened more easily .  In any event, this should be:

  • Within 12 months of the incident
  • or within 12 months of ou becoming ware of the matter

Within twelve months of the incident that caused the problem; or within twelve months of you becoming aware of the matter.

If you are a registered patient you can complain about your own care. You are not normally able to complain about someone else's treatment without their written authority.  See below for what to do in this case.

Send your written complaint to:

Mr Andy Botcher - Practice Manager

Via email to:

Alternatively, forms on which you can describe your complaint are available from reception.  Or, you may ask for an appointment with the practice manager to discuss your concerns. He will explain the complaints procedure to you and make sure your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

If you do not wish to raise your complaint directly with the Practice, you may make your complaint directly to Suffolk & North East Essex Integrated Care Board via their email address complaints @snee.nhs.uk, who commission our service.

Please note, you cannot complain to both the Practice and the ICB.

What we do next

We do our best to settle complaints as soon as possible.

We aim to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days, and to resolve the matter as soon as possible and will try to give you some idea of how long that may take at the outset.  

A full investigation will then take place and we shall aim to:

• Find out what happened and why
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like to do this
• Make sure you receive a full explanation and apology, if appropriate
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again, if appropriate

There is no end date by which you must receive a response but you will be updated regularly on the progress of the investigation.

When the investigations are complete, a final written response will be sent to you.

Where your complaint has been initially sent to an incorrect organisation, we may seek your consent to forward this to the correct person to deal with.

The practice complaints manager is:

Mr Andy Botcher  -  Practice Manager

If the complainant is not satisfied with the results of the internal investigation they will be invited to attend the surgery, with a friend if he/she wishes, to discuss the complaint and the findings of the internal investigation.

Written confirmation of the outcome of the meeting will be sent to the complainant.

If the complaint remains unresolved the complainant will be informed of his/her right to pursue the complaint via the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman.  

Their contact details are:

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Citygate

Mosley Street

Manchester   m2 3hq

Tel: 0345 0154033

Ombudsman website

You may 

You may also approach Health Watch or the Suffolk Advocacy Service for help or advice; The local Health Watch http://www.healthwatch.co.uk/

or call 03000 68 3000 The Suffolk Advocacy Service is able to be contacted at: Suffolk Advocacy Service | Home | POhWER

Complaining on behalf of someone else

We keep to the strict rules of medical and personal confidentiality. If you wish to make a complaint and are not the patient involved, we will require the written consent of the patient to confirm that they are unhappy with their treatment and that we can deal with someone else about it. In the event the patient is deceased, then we may agree to respond to a family member or anyone acting on their behalf or who has had an interest in the welfare of the patient.

Where the patient is incapable of providing consent due to illness, accident or mental capacity, it may still be possible to deal with the complaint. Please provide the precise details of the circumstances that prevent this in your covering letter.

Please note that we are unable to discuss any issue relating to someone else without their express permission, which must be in writing, unless the circumstances above apply. You may also find that if you are complaining on behalf of a child who is capable of making their own complaint, we will expect that child to contact us themselves to lodge their complaint.

We may still need to correspond directly with the patient, or may be able to deal directly with the third party. This depends on the wording of the authority provided

 

PALS (NHS Suffolk)

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use the Practice Complaints Procedure. We believe this will give both parties the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve practice procedures. This does not affect your right to approach the local PALS if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us and want advice on how to take your complaint forward.  They can be contacted on 0800 389 6819