After 8 months of backwards and forwards with my surgery and the many doctors I have seen. 2 of which I have been shocked and disgusted with their response and final outcome I have finally decided to make an official complaint against the surgery.

This isn’t a witch hunt against the NHS or staff, having been in hospital a couple of times this year with an accident and then a separate operation/surgery I have been looked after and seen by some fantastic staff & medical professionals and I could not fault them at all and I am extremely grateful to the NHS.

I know that they are stretched with money and resources and only have a limited amount of time to see us on each visit but I have had enough.

I don’t know how to go about it, so has anyone done this sort of thing before, how does it work?

Is it just a case of finding out they complaints contact and procedure and putting it all in writing?

I am going to find an alternative practice as I have lost all faith and patience with my current surgery.

just search ‘NHS complaints’

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/health/nhs-and-social-care-complaints/nhs-complaints-who-is-your-complaint-against/complaints-about-gps/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/complaint/

I had to make a formal complaint to our local hospital earlier this year. I was surpised how seriously it was taken and we got a good resolution. There are some good letter formats here:

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/health/nhs-and-social-care-complaints/complaining-about-the-nhs/tips-and-tools-to-help-you-make-a-complaint-about-health-services/Letter-of-complaint-about-NHS/

In your letter you need to::
– Clearly describe the timeline
– Describe what went wrong and the impact this had
– Detail specifically what you would like done and by when (this is the bit people can miss, but you need to be realistic)

Avoid ranty letters and make sure you are realistic with what you want. For us, we wanted a different consultant for our daughter to review her care, and appointment within 30 days and review/apology from the trust. They were able to do all these things and were falling overthemselves to avoid being sued, which they did and we were all happy.

https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/How_to_raise_concerns_about_a_general_practice_0.pdf

It is this bit
” Decide what you would like to achieve
How would you like things to be put right? Perhaps, you want an apology, a meeting to discuss the problem or for action to be taken to stop the same mistake from happening again. ”

That you need to think about. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

“Complain as soon as you can
It’s best to complain as soon as possible while the events are still fresh in your mind.”

Putting it in writing is good, but I’d suggest also giving your local CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) a call and ask to speak to their Complaints team or, if they don’t have one, their Primary Care team. As others have said, chat through it calmly and factually, with timelines and impacts.

(I say this as someone who works in a CCG and knows the Complaints team here and the work they do.)

Good luck with it. Got nowhere with my complaint about minor surgery at a GP’s which went rather wrong, needing further surgery by a ‘proper’ surgeon. My usual GP wasn’t interested and actually refused treatment following blood tests. Went to another GP practice and they started treatment straight away.

Ombudsman exists only to defend the NHS regardless of harm caused. Their uphold rate is 2% which tells you all you need to know.

Are there not review sites for doctors, there are here in Spain. Yesterday i had an appointment with a specialist who must have been having a bad day, he was truly awful. I am going to write a bad review on the website, he is private so I can go where I want.

Ombudsman exists only to defend the NHS regardless of harm caused. Their uphold rate is 2% which tells you all you need to know.

What does that tell me? That 98% of people who complain about things, the independent review finds are not valid complaints. Does that mean that there is a bias? or that people like to moan, have unrealistic expectations, don’t appreciate that diagnosing and fixing people is not engineering and subject to huge “errors” which are totally normal, and nothing to do with the individual or the system. People seem to like to have someone (else) to blame. Media and our culture increasingly tell us we must speak out when dissatisfied. Neither of those things mean doctors are necessarily bad at medicine. Someone who was convinced the NHS was near infallible would presume the latter; but someone who was convinced the NHS, and its ombudsman were fundamentally flawed would apply their own bias to infer the data support their assertion. As an impartial observer it most certainly doesn’t “tell me all I need to know”.

But your claim got me intrigued so I decided to look. Taking the last quarter they have data for as an example about 75% of the “complaints” they receive are signposted elsewhere . Those that remain go into an assessment pile. By the time that is complete it appears roughly 13% have been resolved to the satisfaction of the complainer. Only where it progresses from assessment to investigation can the the Ombudsman actually made a finding. 46% of the cases that progressed that far were either partly or fully upheld. The numbers are a bit messy because not every case resolved in that quarter would have started in the same quarter, and not every case started has reached a conclusion – but your 2% is roughly right for the total proportion of upheld (or part upheld) decisions versus no of initial complaints submitted. But its also the same as the number of not-upheld decision. If you look at the numbers differently and take the denominator only as eligible complaints (those not signposted elsewhere) and combine the numbers where at some stage it resolved to the complainants satisfaction OR it was partially or fully upheld at the end – it looks more like 1/4-1/3rd of eligible complainants leave with an outcome they would be happy with. Even more seem to have abandoned their complaint in the process, and only 3-4% of initial complaints make it all the way through only to be told after the full investigation that their complaint had no valid basis… Still nothing there tells me that there is or isn’t a systematic bias. But the fact you would choose to present only a very biased interpretation of the process outcomes tell me you may have an inherent bias yourself.

Holy escalation Batman! There’s no need for the Ombudsman or the CCG just yet!

All you need to do is write to the Practice, either email or letter, it doesn’t matter, They may have a complaint email set up, if not, just phone the reception team (leave it until past 10) and they’ll be happy to give you the details.  There will be information about how to complain on the patient notice board if you don’t want to talk to anyone. The Practice will probably send you an acknowledgment and should be able to tell you what their timeline for investigation and resolution will be, and will give you further details about who to complain to if you don’t feel that your complaint has been dealt with properly. Give them as much detail as you can, and do say what you’d like them to do to resolve it.

Good luck with your search for a new practice.*  The CCG CAN help with this, but if you do contact them they will probably want to give your existing practice a chance to rectify your problem.

* edit, not meant to be sarky, having issues at the Doctors is rubbish, hope you get it sorted.

All you need to do is write to the Practice

Where the doctors will discuss it and most likely ignore it………………

Write to the practice manager in the first place. They should be able to help you deal with any issues you have. How you proceed after will be down to either it’s professional conduct or their medical treatment of you.