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Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the Doctors or any of the staff working in the practice, please let us know.

We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of the NHS system for dealing with complaints.  Our compaints system meets national criteria.

Procedure

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, preferably at the time they arise and with the person concerned.  If your problem can not 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 - this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.  If it not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint.

You may choose to make your complaint orally or in writing

  • within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem
  • within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem provided this is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints should be addressed to the Practice Manager, Culcheth Medical Centre at the above address.  Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with the Practice Manager to discuss your concerns.

We will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.  It will be great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

Please feel free to consult your local PALS Office (Patient Liaison Service) who are able to provide support and independant help in relation to any complaint you may have.  Your local PALS Office is based within Warrington Hospital on 01925 275512.

What we shall do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 10 working days of the date when you raised it with us.  You may then receive a formal reply in writing or you may be invited to meet with us to resilve the issue.  If the matter is likely to take longer than this we will let you know and keep you informed as investigations progress.

  • Find out what happened and what went wrong
  • Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate
  • Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again

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.

Where the patient is incapable of providing consent due to illness or accident, it may still be possible to deal with the complaint.

Please provide the precise details of the circumstances which prevent this in your correspondance.

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of confidentiality.