If you are unhappy with an NHS service you have received, you are entitled to make a complaint about any aspect of NHS care or treatment under the NHS complaints procedure.
All NHS organisations must have a complaints procedure whereby you can raise your concerns.
Patients’ rights when making a complaint
For all NHS patients, the NHS Constitution outlines their rights when making a complaint, including the rights to:
- Have your complaint dealt with efficiently and properly investigated.
- Know the outcome of any investigation into your complaint.
- Take your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman if you are not satisfied with the way that the NHS has dealt with your complaint.
Why make a complaint?
Making a complaint to the NHS can be very helpful for a number of reasons, which include:
- It lodges your concerns with the NHS service and allows them the chance to investigate and respond.
- It provides an opportunity to receive an explanation as to why your were treated in this manner by the NHS organisation.
- You may be offered a complaints meeting with key members of staff and those who were in charge of your treatment, so that they can ask you questions face-to face about your treatment.
- If you choose to make a medical negligence claim then having made an initial complaint to the NHS might help, as the response from the NHS may contain an admission of fault, for example, which could potentially make bringing a claim much easier.
NHS complaints process time limits
It is worth noting that there is a time limit of 12 months, which is from the date of the treatment that you received, to lodge a complaint with the NHS.
There are instances where an extension to this time limit can be applied and granted by the NHS, such as situations where it would have been difficult for you to complain sooner (e.g. serious illness or trauma).
How to make an NHS complaint
The first stage of the process is to make a direct complaint to the hospital, GP surgery or dentist.
Firstly, we would suggest requesting the complaints procedure for the NHS service, which should clearly detail the process.
You can make a complaint in writing, by email or verbally. We would suggest making a complaint in writing as this will ensure you have an audit trail of correspondence to refer back to.
Once the complaint has been lodged with the NHS, you should receive acknowledgement of the complaint within 14 days.
It is possible, and, in fact, becoming much more common, for the NHS service to offer a face-to-face meeting to discuss your complaint with members of the treating team, rather than a written response. It is your choice whether such a meeting is acceptable to you, but we would highly recommend that you ensure the meeting is recorded (either an audio recording or a detailed written summary) and that you will be provided with a copy.
If you would prefer not to attend a meeting, you can advise the NHS that you would like a written response in the first instance.
A full investigation should then take place but the timescales for this will vary dependent on the nature of the complaint made (an indication of the timescale should be outlined in the acknowledgement letter). Once the full investigation has been completed, a comprehensive report of the NHS’ findings should be sent to you.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint, you can take matters to the next stage and request that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman investigate matters.
What next?
If the NHS complaints process does highlight serious shortcomings in the treatment provided, then you can decide to bring a medical negligence claim.
How Can Nelsons Help?
Danielle Young is an Associate in our Medical Negligence team.
If you have any questions in relation to the NHS complaints process or have any other medical negligence related queries, then please get in touch with Danielle or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.