The people who look after your health will do whatever they can to make sure you are treated properly and promptly. But sometimes things do go wrong. This section explains what to do if you want to give feedback or complain about the services or treatment you get from the NHS.

The aim is to give you a quick, but thorough response that answers your concerns properly - where possible from those who know most about your care.

Giving Feedback

The NHS wants to know:

• What you think about its services generally
• What your suggestions are for the future
• When you are pleased by the efforts of their staff to help

Feel free to contact them with any comments or suggestions you may have. You can do this:

• By talking or writing to staff
• By writing to the relevant chief executive
• By writing to any Trust manager or director

You can also give feedback via the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)

However, the NHS also wants to know when things go wrong, so they can quickly put them right for you, and so that they can use what they learn from your experience to improve services to other people.

Who Can Complain

Anyone receiving, or who has received, NHS treatment or services can complain. If you are unable to complain yourself then someone else, usually a relative or close friend, can complain for you.

It is important that you make your complaint as soon as possible after the event you want to complain about happens. Usually the NHS will only investigate complaints:

• Made within six months of the event, or
• Made within six months of you realising that you have something to complain about, as long as that is not more than twelve months after the event itself.

These time limits can be waived if there are good reasons why you could not complain sooner.

Complaints Which Cannot be Dealt With by the NHS System

There are some things which cannot be dealt with under the NHS complaints system including:

• Complaints about private care
• Complaints about Local Authority Social Services
• Events requiring investigation by a professional disciplinary body
• Events about which you are already taking legal action

Your GP or PALS will confirm whether your complaint is about the NHS.

What Will Happen When You Complain

Local Resolution

Whenever possible, you should start by telling someone close to the cause of your complaint, e.g. a receptionist, doctor, nurse, practice manager or ward sister. Staff will be as helpful as possible and will try to sort out the problem there and then.

Whoever you ask to look into your complaint, will do their best to sort out the problem as quickly as possible. Sometimes they may need to involve staff to establish what has happened and to decide what action to take. They will be careful to ensure that any information about you is kept confidential.

This part of the procedure is called the Local Resolution.

If you would prefer to talk to someone not directly involved in your care in the case of The Great Western Hospital (TGW)or services provided by the Primary Care Trust (PCT), you can contact the Patient Advice and Liaison service (PALS), set up as part of the Government’s ten year plan to improve the NHS.

In the case of NHS mental health services you should contact the Avon and Wiltshire Mental health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) (see below).

Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)

PALS provides information and support to people using NHS services via TGW or the PCT, eg: patients, carers and relatives:

• To make using NHS services as easy as possible
• To help guide people through the services the NHS provides locally and nationally
• To work with health care providers to make sure the public gets the right information about services when they need it, in a form they need it in
• To signpost people to information on support groups, voluntary organisations and advocacy groups
• To help people gain access to their own medical health records
• To listen to questions, suggestions, concerns and complaints and work with staff and service users to answer them
• To collect feedback via questionnaires and focus groups and use it as part of ongoing staff training
• To make sure suggestions about how to improve NHS services are taken seriously
• To give people details of the NHS complaints procedure if they want to make a complaint

Contact

PALS can be found at two locations:

For the Great Western Hospital:

Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
Patient Services
The Great Western Hospital
Marlborough Road
Swindon
SN3 6BB

Map showing the location

(The PALS office is situated on the ground floor, next to the Transport Lounge.)

Tel: 01793 604031 (Monday to Friday 9.00am-5.00pm, confidential answerphone out of hours; accepts typetalk messages on this number)
Confidential fax: 01793 604376
E-mail: pals.team@smnhst.nhs.uk

For Swindon NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT):

Patient Advice and Liaison Service
Swindon NHS Primary Care Trust
North Swindon District Centre
Thamesdown Drive
Swindon
SN25 4AN

Map showing the location

Tel: 01793 708758
Fax: 01793 708701
E-mail: swindonpctpalscomments@swindon-pct.nhs.uk

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP)

If talking to people locally does not resolve things, you may decide to make a formal verbal or written complaint to the chief executive at the address below.

The Patient’s Charter gives you the right to have a full and prompt written reply from the chief executive to any written complaint against a trust or health authority. The NHS tries to do this within four weeks of receiving a complaint. Where there are good reasons why this cannot be achieved, you will be kept informed of progress.

Contact

Bath NHS House
Newbridge Hill
Bath
BA1 3QE

Map showing the location

Tel: 01225 731731

Independent Review

You will be informed by letter of the outcome of the Local Resolution process. If you are not satisfied, you can ask for your complaint to be taken to Independent Review.

You should do this within four weeks of the date of the letter telling you of the outcome of Local Resolution action. That letter will tell you who to contact if you want to request an Independent review.

Your request will be considered by a specially-trained member of the trust or health, called a convener, who will ask you to explain in writing exactly why you are still dissatisfied, if you have not already done so.

The convener will ask an independent lay person to look at your case, and together they will consider whether any other Local resolution action might resolve your problem.

If they don’t think it will, the convener will decide whether there should be an Independent Review Panel in response to every request, only if they think it is likely to resolve the problems you have identified.

Either way, you will be informed of the convener’s decision in writing, generally within four weeks of your request for an Independent Review. If the decision is to set up a panel investigation, the convener will tell you what matters the panel is going to investigate.

Independent Review Panel

The panel will have three people-an independent lay person acting as chairman, the convener, and one other person. It will re-examine fully the concerns referred to it by the convener, talking to everyone involved, and getting any specialist advice it needs.

It will prepare a report setting out the results of its investigations, together with its conclusions and any appropriate comments or suggestions.

You will be given a copy of the report, and the chief executive will write to tell you of any action being taken as a result of the panel’s recommendations.

The Health Ombudsman

If you are still dissatisfied after the NHS complaints procedure has been completed you can ask the Health service Ombudsman to investigate your case.

The Ombudsman is completely independent of both the NHS and of the Government. As well as complaints about NHS services, s/he can investigate complaints about how the complaints procedure is working. For example s/he could investigate a complaint about a convener’s decision not to set up an Independent Review Panel. If you want to discuss whether to formerly ask the Ombudsman to investigate, contact them by phone or in writing.

The Ombudsman is not obliged to investigate every complaint, and s/he will not generally take on a case that has not been through the NHS complaints procedure, or one being dealt with by the courts.

Contact

11th Floor
Millbank Tower
London
SW1P 4QP

Tel: 0845 0154033
Fax: 020 7217 4066
E-mail: ohsc.enquiries@ombudsman.gsi.gov.uk
Website: www.ombudsman.org.uk

Help With Your Complaint

We list many sources of help and support in this directory for people who have issues about the care they receive from the NHS.

See in particular the sections:

• Help to Access and Understand Information
• Counselling and Support
• Choices and Rights
• Legal Advice