How to share your concerns, make suggestions for improvements
We value and respect the views of everyone who has reason to use our services. If you are unhappy with any aspect of your experience, either as a patient or a relative/carer, we want to know about it. The Clinical Quality Team is here to listen, in confidence, to any concerns or complaints you may have about the care you or someone you care for has received.
Our team will:
- Listen to comments, concerns and complaints about the care we have provided for you or your family.
- Arrange for your complaint or concern to be investigated and ensure you receive a response.
- Ensure that Shropdoc learns from concerns and complaints, where possible, to provide the best possible care to our patients and service users.
We aim to provide the best possible care for people who use our services, their families and carers. However, we recognise that there may be times when you are not satisfied with the service you have received and may wish to make a complaint, have it considered and receive a response from us. We use the information from our investigations of complaints to try to improve the standard of care we provide in order that we might prevent similar problems occurring in the future.
We would like to assure you that raising a concern or a complaint will not prejudice the treatment/care or support provided to you and no record of your complaint will be held on your medical records.
Any concerns/complaints raised about the services provided are investigated in accordance Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009.
- Recent or past users of Shropdoc services.
- Representatives of patients (e.g. relatives, friends or carers) acting with their consent.
- People acting on behalf of deceased patients, acting with the consent of the patient’s next of kin.
- You should make your complaint as soon as possible after the event in question.
- No later than 12 months after the event or the date when you became aware of the problem (if later).
- Our manager has the discretion to waive the time limit if there are satisfactory reasons why you could not complain earlier.
- Suggestions can be made at any point to the team directly by email, telephone or via the Shropdoc survey where there is a dedicated question for this.
- You should always try to let the person delivering the service know that you are unhappy, so they can put things right at the time whenever possible.
- Shropdoc understands that you may not always feel comfortable doing this. You can speak to a member of our Clinical Quality Team (contact details above) who can investigate your concerns under the NHS Complaints Regulations (2009). You can make your complaint orally, electronically or in writing.
- A member of the Team will contact you to discuss your concerns, guide you on the best way to deal with them and consider how long this is likely to take.
- It may be that a telephone call from our manager can resolve your difficulties, or you may want an apology. You may want a full investigation and a written response. We can arrange any of these or other possible solutions for you.
- We will keep you updated on what is happening and agree with you the best way to do this (telephone/ email/ letter).
- We will endeavour to make the process as easy as possible. We will also give you details of the advocacy services available (details below).
- If you have particular requirements or a disability, we can find ways of providing you with the help and information you need.
- We will contact you within three working days of receiving your complaint. We will always try to telephone you, but if we cannot reach you, we will write to you.
- We will agree a reasonable timescale to give us enough time to respond to our complaint in the way agreed. Wherever possible, full investigation and resolution of complaints will be sought within 25 working days of being registered.
- If it is deemed likely that we cannot provide a response by the date agreed, we will contact you to explain why this is and provide a revised date.
- When we first get in touch with you, we will agree how we will respond to your complaint.
- We will keep you updated with progress, using the means agreed during our initial contact (telephone, email or letter).
- If you are not happy with how your complaint has been managed then please let us know. We can agree some other ways of dealing with your concerns.
- We will always try to find ways to resolve your concerns. However, if all reasonable means of resolving your concerns have been tried and you are still dissatisfied then you can request a review by the Ombudsman (contact details below).
Tips on making a complaint in British Sign Language (BSL)
The video below, created by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), contains tips and guidance on how to make a complaint in BSL.
Complaints (easy read)
How to say what was good, bad or anything else.
