Practice Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working at the Health Centre, please let us know. We operate a Practice Complaints Procedure as part of a NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets the 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. This will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have your complaint:

within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem, or
within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem provided this is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints should be addressed to Mrs Yvonne West, Practice Manager, or any of the doctors. We do have complaint forms which you can fill in and can be picked up from reception or click here to print one off. Alternatively you may ask for an appointment with Yvonne in order to discuss your concerns. She will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

What happens then

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 happened and what went wrong
make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like to
make sure you receive an apology where this is appropriate
identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.

Compliments and Suggestions

It would also be nice to hear from you if we have done something particulary well. Maybe a particular member of staff has been extremely helpful and efficient or you have a suggestion that would help us perform a better service. In either case please ask at Reception for a form or please write to Mrs Yvonne West, Practice Manager.

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