How to make a compliment or complaint
Whether you are happy or unhappy with the care and treatment that you have received, please get in touch and let us know your views.
Receiving compliments and complaints is important to ensuring good quality local healthcare in our Practice – helping us to find out more about what we’re getting right and what we can improve.
We hope this will help you to make your feelings and experiences known to the appropriate people. Should you have a complaint we hope this page will give you more information about what to do, who to contact and what happens next.
How do I raise a concern / informal complaint?
You can speak to any member of staff initially with your complaint. This gives you the opportunity to resolve any concern you may have without it going through a formal process.
Most complaints are best resolved within the practice and these should be made via the Practice Operations Managers. We ask all patients to send their complaint in writing either:
Via Post addressed to The Practice Operations Managers, Clarendon Surgery, Pendleton Gateway, 1 The Broadwalk, Salford, M6 5FX
Or Via Email to gmicb-sal.clarendoncomplaints@nhs.net
If you would prefer to make a complaint verbally, our Care Navigators will take as much detail as possible and send a message to the Practice Operations Managers who will be in touch via telephone.
Formal Complaint
What we will do
We will contact you about your complaint within three working days and offer to discuss with you the best way to investigate it, including the time scales for a reply. We will aim to offer you an explanation within that time frame 0r a meeting with the people involved.
Our next steps:
- Find out what happened and what went wrong
- Invite you to discuss the problem with those involved, if you would like this
- Apologise where this is appropriate
- Identify what we can do to make sure that the problem does not happen again
If you feel you do not want to contact the surgery directly, then you can contact the ICS Complaints team on. Details of how to do this can be found at the following website, under the ‘Local area feedback and complaints’ section:
https://gmintegratedcare.org.uk/have-your-say/contact-us/
You can also contact the team via:
- Post – Salford Patient Services – NHS GM, Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton, M27 5AW
- Email – gmicb-sal.patientservices@nhs.net
- Call: 0161 779 8800
Please note that NHS GM Integrated Care cannot deal with any complaints which are already being or have already been dealt with by the provider directly.
If you are making a complaint please state: ‘For the attention of the complaints team’ in the subject line.
https://gmintegratedcare.org.uk/have-your-say/contact-us/
In General
If you have a complaint to make, you can either contact the Practice Manager or ask the Receptionist for a copy of our Complaints Procedure.
We will endeavour to:
- acknowledge any letter or Complaints Form within 3 working days of receiving it.
- deal with the matter as promptly as possible – within 40 days – dependent on the nature of the complaint.
- If we feel the investigation will take longer than the 40 days, we will be in touch to keep you up to date with the progress of your complaint
Who can complain
- Complainants may be current or former patients, or their nominated or elected representatives (who have been given consent to act on the patients behalf).
- Patients over the age of 16 whose mental capacity is unimpaired should normally complain themselves or authorise someone to bring a complaint on their behalf.
- Children under the age of 16 can also make their own complaint, if they’re able to do so.
If a patient lacks capacity to make decisions, their representative must be able to demonstrate sufficient interest in the patient’s welfare and be an appropriate person to act on their behalf. This could be a partner, relative or someone appointed under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 with lasting power of attorney.
Appropriate person
In certain circumstances, we need to check that a representative is the appropriate person to make a complaint:
- For example, if the complaint involves a child, we must satisfy ourselves that there are reasonable grounds for the representative to complain, rather than the child concerned.
- If the patient is a child or a patient who lacks capacity, we must also be satisfied that the representative is acting in the patient’s best interests.
If we are not satisfied that the representative is an appropriate person we will not consider the complaint, and will give the representative the reasons for our decision in writing.
Time limits
A complaint must be made within 12 months, either from the date of the incident or from when the complainant first knew about it.
The regulations state that a responsible body should only consider a complaint after this time limit if:
- the complainant has good reason for doing so, and
- it’s still possible to investigate the complaint fairly and effectively, despite the delay.
Procedure
We have a two stage complaints procedure. We will always try to deal with your complaint quickly however if it is clear that the matter will need a detailed investigation, we will notify you and then keep you updated on our progress.
- Stage one – Early, local resolution
We will try to resolve your complaint within five working days if possible.If you are dissatisfied with our response, you can ask us to escalate your complaint to Stage Two.
- Stage Two – Investigation
We will look at your complaint at this stage if you are dissatisfied with our response at Stage One.We also escalate some complaints straight to this stage, if it is clear that they are complex or need detailed investigation.
We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and we will give you our decision as soon as possible. This will be no more that 20 working days unless there is clearly a good reason for needing more time to respond.
Complain to the Ombudsman
If, after receiving our final decision, you remain dissatisfied you may take your complaint to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS and free to use. It can help resolve your complaint, and tell the NHS how to put things right if it has got them wrong.
The Ombudsman only has legal powers to investigate certain complaints. You must have received a final response from the Practice before the Ombudsman can look at your complaint and it will generally not look into your complaint if it happened more than 12 months ago, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Address:
Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Tower 30
Millbank
London SW1P 4QP
Phone: 0345 015 4033
Email: Using our secure email service | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
Confidentiality
All complaints will be treated in the strictest confidence
Where the investigation of the complaint requires consideration of the patient’s medical records, we will inform the patient or person acting on his/her behalf if the investigation will involve disclosure of information contained in those records to a person other than the Practice or an employee of the Practice.
We keep a record of all complaints and copies of all correspondence relating to complaints, but such records will be kept separate from patients’ medical records.
Statistics and reporting
The Practice must submit to the local primary care organisation periodically/at agreed intervals details of the number of complaints received and actioned.
Give feedback or make a complaint
You can complain to a member of staff at the NHS service you went to, such as a GP surgery or hospital, or you can complain to the organisation in charge.