Complaints Policy

 

 

The Edinburgh Practice aims to provide a high level of care across all services. The practice is committed to ensuring that those who use its services are readily able to access information about how to make a complaint and that issues raised are dealt with promptly and fairly. We ensure that the care of people who make complaints about our services will not be adversely affected because they have complained. Indeed, information derived from complaints provides an important source of data to help us to make improvements in our service provision. Complaints’ correspondence is stored and recorded separately from clinical records.

The key objectives of this policy are:

  • Each complaint is investigated promptly, fairly and thoroughly.
  • Lessons are identified and action taken when appropriate.
  • Communication with the complainant is timely, suitable, satisfactory and that appropriate remedial actions are taken.
  • Complainants have confidence that their concerns are heard and addressed.
Who can complain?

A complaint may be made by an active service user, someone is currently using our services or has done within the last 6 months, or a person acting on behalf of an active service user. Anyone not using our services can provide feedback by emailing management@edinburghpractice.com.  Where a complainant is acting on behalf of a service user, written consent must be obtained from the service user before a response can be sent. Where the service user is a child without capacity, a complaint may be made by the parent or guardian. Where the service user has died, the complaint may be made by the named next of kin or by a person nominated by the named next of kin. In other circumstances where the complainant may have difficulty complaining on their own behalf or have other requirements, the Management Team will review each situation in light of current legal requirements and offer help and support to a complainant as appropriate.

How to make a complaint
  • By telephone
  • Email or Letter

Should a complaint be made via a telephone call, all our calls are recorded and therefore we will have a transcript of your complaint, and we will provide you a copy of this for reference.

Responsibility

Our Practice Manager has overall responsibility for handling complaints made about administrative or operating services at The Edinburgh Practice.

Our Clinical Leads have overall responsibility for handling complaints made about clinical services.

How we manage complaints
  1. Complaint acknowledgement: We will acknowledge a complaint as soon as possible.
  2. Complaint investigation: A member of our senior management team will investigate your complaint. This may involve reviewing relevant files and documents, liaising with staff members and/or requesting further information from you.
  3. Complaint resolution: We aim to have all complaints resolved as soon as possible but certainly within 28 days. There may be certain circumstances where this timescale increases, if that is the case, we will inform you of the reasons why. When we have finished investigating, we will respond to your complaint in writing.
  4. We will provide a summary of:
  • The complaint investigation and outcome
  • Any action points that we have taken or intend to take forwards in relation to your complaint
  • Our proposals to resolve your complaint
Redress

Should management feel that the complaint is upheld, redress will be offered. In order for redress to be offered, management will make their decision based on the impact that the incident has had on the complainant.

Examples of redress can include:

  • An apology, either written or verbal from the staff member, management team or clinician.
  • A report outlining how we will be improving or developing our policies and/or procedures where the complainant helped bring an issue to our attention.
  • Agreement to review employees and/or clinicians work performance.
  • In exceptional circumstances, financial compensation may be offered at the discretion of the Clinical Director.
Recording and monitoring complaints

All complaints will be recorded and kept on encrypted electronic files held by Senior Management. Complaints will be regularly reviewed and monitored.

Time limits

You should complain as soon as you can, however, please be aware that we will not investigate complaints about events that occurred more than six months before the complaint is received.

Unacceptable Actions Policy

We will always investigate a complaint fully, however, if at any point in that process, if necessary, we may invoke our unacceptable actions policy.

Further steps

Once we have processed and fully responded to your complaint, if you are not happy with the outcome you can refer your complaint to Healthcare Improvement Scotland at:

Programme Manager Independent Healthcare Services Team

Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9EB

Tel: 0131 623 4342 (10am-2pm, Monday to Friday) Email: his.ihcregulation@nhs.scot