Complaints Policy

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 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 12 months of the incident.

The complaints manager 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.

Complaints can be made either orally, in writing to Claire Hopkins our complaints manager, or via our online complaints form.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within three working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 28 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 this;
• Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate;
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.

We will aim to investigate and deal with all complaints efficiently and speedily. We will send you a written response with a report on the investigation as soon as reasonably practicable. If we are not able to meet the response deadline we have agreed with you, we will contact you to advise why and negotiate another timescale.

All oral complaints will be recorded by the Practice and we will respond to them within 48 hours.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

We hope that if you have a problem, you will use our Practice Complaints Procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve the services provided by our Practice.

Alternatively, if you prefer, you can raise the matter with Birmingham and Solihull ICB.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint at local level you can ask the Ombudsman to independently review your case by writing to:

The Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

You can also visit their website for other options on how to raise a complaint