Making a Complaint
You are very welcome to speak to a member of management or our Senior Receptionist in a confidential environment. Most problems can be sorted out quickly and easily with the person concerned, often at the time they arise, and this may be the approach you try first.
Where you are not able to resolve your complaint in this way and wish to make a formal complaint you should do so, preferably in writing as soon as possible after the event and ideally within a few days, giving as much detail as you can, as this helps us to establish what happened more easily. In any event, this should be:
- Within 12 months of the incident,
- or within 12 months of you becoming aware of the matter
If you are a registered patient you can complain about your own care. You are not normally able to complain about someone else’s treatment without their written authority.
What we do next
We will aim to settle complaints as soon as possible. We have a Practice Manager and a Business Manager who both work full time across 5 days per week.
Written complaints should be submitted to our practice email address gp-p92026@nhs.net marked for the attention of the Practice Manager. If you have written to the surgery in the first instance or following a verbal complaint, we will usually acknowledge receipt within three working days. A written record of your complaint will be made by the manager and stored within the practice complaints log. We will aim to resolve the matter as soon as possible, in cases where an investigation into a matter is needed a timeframe will be set out for you to expect a formal reply to your complaint. When looking into a complaint we attempt to see what happened and why, once all investigations are complete, you will then receive a formal reply or you may be invited into the surgery in attempt to resolve the issue.
The practice reviews all complaints and hold regular practice meeting to discuss and learn from anonymised complaints.
External Complaints
In the event of anyone not wishing to complain to the practice they should be directed to make their complaint to NHS GM Integrated Care at:-
Complaints,
Wigan – NHS GM,
Wigan Life Centre,
College Avenue,
Wigan, WN1 1NJ
Email:
gmicb-wb.complaints@nhs.net
Call:
01942 482711
In those cases where the complaint is made to NHS GM Integrated Care, the practice will comply with all appropriate requests for information and co-operate fully in assisting them to investigate and respond to the complaint.
In addition to the above, the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) provides confidential advice and support to patients, families and carers, and can offer advice on NHS and health-related matters. They can be helpful in such areas and can be contacted on 01942 822376.
If an issue remains unresolved following a practice review then patients may take their complaints to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Patients can write to the ombudsman at:
The parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Citygate
47-51 Mosley Street
Manchester
M2 3HQ
or visit the ‘Making a complaint page‘ at https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/make-a-complaint (to complain online or download a paper form). Alternatively the complainant may call the PHSO Customer Helpline on 0345 015 4033 from 8:30am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday or send a text to their ‘call back’ service: 07624 813 005
