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Complaints Policy

Making a complaint

The doctors and staff at our practice are committed to providing high quality healthcare and services to patients.

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from doctors or any of the staff working at our practice, please let us know.

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

Share your Feedback with us

We are always interested to hear your feedback, and we recognise that this will not always be positive. You can contact us to share a poor experience with us. We will respond to your feedback if you decide to leave your contact details, and we will also use your feedback to improve.

How to complain

We aim to resolve any complaints and concerns easily and quickly, and if possible at the time they arise with the person concerned.

If your complaint or concern cannot be resolved immediately and if you wish to make a complaint, please provide us with details of your complaint as soon as possible so we can establish the issues in a timely manner. If it is not possible to do so, please provide us with details of your complaint:

within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem or
within 12 months of discovering that you have a problem

Complaints should be addressed to the Complaints Manager. Alternatively you may ask for an appointment with the Practice Manager in order to have your concerns dealt with promptly.

You may submit your complaint in writing by post or at reception, or you can contact us.

We believe that any complaint you have about the practice can be dealt with by those responsible for ensuring patient care and delivery of service within the practice, but we recognise that you may feel uncomfortable with doing so or that you may be unhappy with the result of our complaints procedure. If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your complaint, you have the right to escalate the matter to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. This is an independent organisation that offers a free and impartial resolution service.For more information, you can visit their website or contact them by phone on 0345 015 4033.

What we will do

We will contact you about your complaint within three working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We will then be in a position to offer you an explanation or a meeting with the person or people involved. When we investigate your complaint we will aim to:

find out what happened and what went wrong
invite you to discuss the problem with those involved, if you have requested this
make sure you receive an apology where appropriate
identify what we can do to make sure that the problem does not happen agai

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Medical records are protected by the data Protection Act 1998. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else we need to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed unless they are incapable (i.e. due to illness) of providing this.

Getting help

There are two ways you can make a complaint:

You can complain to us Directly
You can complain to the commissioner of the service. This is the organisation that paid for the service or care you received.

If you want to contact us to make a complaint, you can do this by:

Telephone: 020 8221 5750
E-mail: nelondonicb.complaints@nhs.net
Writing to us at: Complaints Department NHS North East London 9th Floor – 20 Churchill Place London E14 5HJ