If you have a concern about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in this practice, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of an NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaints system meets national criteria.
Complaints, Compliments and Feedback – Swansea Bay University Health Board
How to complain
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 matter 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 this, please let us have 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, provided this is within 12 months of the incident.
Complaints should be addressed to Mrs D Picton Practice Manager for any of the doctors. Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment in order to discuss your concerns. We will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.
What we shall do
We shall acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 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 write to you within 30 days outlining:
- What happened and what went wrong
- Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned if you would like this
- Make sure you receive an apology where this is appropriate
- Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again
Complaining on behalf of someone else
Please note that we keep strictly to 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.
Complaining to the Health Board
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 things right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your right to approach the Health Board, if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation, you may wish to contact:
Swansea Bay University Health Board
NPT Locality Office
Block A
Neath Port Talbot Hospital
Baglan Way
Port Talbot, SA12 7BX
Tel/Ffôn: 01639 684500
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of a complaint, you have twelve months in which to request an independent review of the complaint from the Ombudsman. Information relating to this can by found in the leaflet ‘Putting things right’ which is available at:
http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/organisations-we-investigate/putting-things-right
If you need assistance with this, you may wish to contact the advocacy service at:
Llais – Neath Port Talbot and Swansea Region
Cimla Health & Social Care Centre, Cimla
Neath
SA11 3SU
Telephone: 01639 683490
Email: [email protected]
