If you have any complaint or concern about the service, you have received from the doctors or staff working for this surgery you are entitled to ask for an explanation. We operate an informal, in-house complaints procedure to deal with your complaints. The procedure is in line with the NHS wide system for dealing with complaints. This procedure does not deal with matters of legal liability or compensation. In some cases, the in-house procedure is not an appropriate form of investigation, and you will be referred to the appropriate authority.
This procedure does not affect your right to make a formal complaint to the Betsi Cadwaladr Local Health Board if you so wish, nor does it affect your right to seek compensation at law.
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 couple 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 –
Your complaint should be addressed, in writing, to the Practice Manager who will ensure that it is investigated thoroughly and as speedily as possible. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.
We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days of receiving it and will aim to have investigated your complaint within 14 working days of the date when you raised it with us.
Your complaint will then be investigated. It is likely that, as a first step, the Practice Manager will contact you directly to ensure that they fully understand your complaint. The Practice Manager will then interview the appropriate member or members of the practice staff and may inspect relevant documents.
We shall then be able to offer you an explanation or offer you a meeting with the people involved. When we investigate your complaint, we shall aim to:
Please note that the practice must ensure strict adherence to the rule of medical confidentiality. We cannot provide confidential information without appropriate authority if you are not the patient in question.
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 provide us with the opportunity to improve the service within the practice.
At the conclusion of the investigation of your complaint, you will be invited to discuss the outcome in detail.