Complaints, Comments & Compliments

Comments

We welcome your views and constructive suggestions which will help us improve our service to you. There is a suggestion/comments box located in the waiting room for this purpose.

Practice Complaints

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

If you feel you 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
• Provided that it is within 12 months of the incident

Victoria Ward our Practice Manager will be pleased to deal with any complaint. She will explain the procedure to you and make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.

Our Procedure

Our complaints procedure is designed to make sure that we settle any complaints as quickly as possible.
We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 7 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 had happened and what may have gone wrong
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
• Make sure you receive appropriate feedback
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again by including each complaint in our internal Significant Event Procedure
• At the end of the investigation your complaint will be discussed with you in detail, either in person or in writing

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 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.

What you can do next

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 our Practice.

However this does not affect your right to approach the Cheshire & Merseyside Commissioning Support Unit if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the way we are dealing with your complaint. The Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) is a confidential advice and support service provided by our Clinical commissioning group and aims to help patients sort out any concerns they may have about the service they receive.

PALS

Wired, Unit 7, Wirral Business Park, Arrowebrook Road, Upton, Wirral CH49 1SX
Tel: 0151 647 4251
Opening Hours: 09:00 – 16:30 Monday to Wednesday and 08:30 – 16:00 Thursday to Friday

Alternatively you can contact

Customer Solutions Centre, Cheshire & Merseyside CSU, 1829 Building, Countess of Chester Health Park, Liverpool Road, Chester CH2 1JH.
or
Health Ombudsman
Helpline: 0845 0145 4033The helpline is open 08:30 – 17:30 Monday – Friday.
Email: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk