Comments, Suggestions & Complaints

Complaints and Feedback

Your feedback helps us make your services better – so if you’ve got something to tell us, good or bad, we want to hear from you.

Letters of Appreciation

If you are happy with the care you have received, or a service by any of our staff, please let us know, please click below to complete our Letters of Appreciation Form or you can send a letter to the Practice Supervisor or any of the Doctors at your usual surgery, feedback is always very much appreciated.

Letters of Appreciation Form

Suggestions or Feedback

If you have any feedback or suggestions for making changes or improvements to the way we provide our services, please use the below feedback form, or send a letter to your usual surgery FTAO of the Practice Supervisor.

You can use this service to let us know if you have experienced problems when accessing our services, highlight minor administration or communication errors and inform us of any general concerns.

You can also use this form to provide suggestions to help us improve our services.

If any action is required, we will aim to respond within 7 working days.

Feedback Form

Formal Complaints

Shore Medical operates an in-house complaints procedure as part of the NHS System for dealing with complaints.

Our system meets the appropriate national criteria.

If you need to make a formal complaint regarding a specific issue with the service and care we provide, we would like to know about it.

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a formal complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible, you can do this by completing our online complaints form, using the button below.

Comments/Complaint Form

You should make a complaint as soon as possible after there has been a problem. We would usually expect complaints to be made within twelve months of the incident concerned or not more than twelve months after you became aware of a problem if it arose from an incident within the previous twelve months.

Your complaint may also be made in person, in writing or by telephone to the Practice Supervisor at your Surgery. If you attend in person or telephone, the Practice Supervisor will write down the details of your complaint and may also ask you further questions so that they are clear of the precise nature of the problem.

Your complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days either orally or in writing, and we will begin our investigation based on the available information.

We will aim where possible to respond to your complaint within 21 working days of the date when you raised it with us, however, should there be any further delay we will keep you informed.

Our response will include:

An explanation of how the complaint has been considered
The conclusions reached
An apology, where this is appropriate
Any matters for which remedial action is needed and that these will be taken
An offer for you to discuss the problem in person, if you would like this
Advise you of your right to take your complaint to an alternative body

We may also include:

A response from a Clinician depending on the nature of your complaint. The response may suggest a meeting to discuss the problem in depth. If a meeting is proposed, this would normally involve a member of the management team and/or clinical team (where appropriate) . We encourage you to bring a friend or relative to the meeting if you wish. Alternatively, you or we might suggest that an impartial third party with experience in dealing with complaints might be present at the meeting.

Shore Medical are not able to deal with questions of legal liability or compensation, these must be channelled elsewhere. For further information please email our complaints team at shoremedical.complaints@dorsetgp.nhs.uk.

Asking Shore Medical to handle a complaint does not affect your right to contact any of the formal organisations to which you are entitled to make a complaint relating to the services we provide, or to seek advice from the The Advocacy Service.

Shore Medical cannot respond to and will not normally react to anonymous complaints. If the comment or complaint is made on behalf of another person, we are not able for reasons of confidentiality to discuss details of the problem without the full written consent of that other person. If a meeting is to be held to discuss the problem, we would prefer both the person making the complaint and the person to whom the complaint relates to be present at the meeting if this is possible.

NHS Dorset – Integrated Care Board

If you do not want to contact the surgery directly, then you can contact the Integrated Care Board (ICB) at NHS Dorset:

Vespasian House
Barrack Road
Dorchester
Dorset
DT1 1TG

Telephone: 01305 368926

Email: customer.careteam@nhsdorset.nhs.uk

ICB Contact Information

Asking for Help – If You’re Not Confident Complaining

If you have a query or concern, but you’re not sure if you want to make a complaint or how to go about the process, you can speak to The Advocacy for People.

The Advocacy for People

The Advocacy for People
PO Box 375 Hastings
TN34 9HU

Telephone: 0300 440 9000 or text 80800 using key word PEOPLE followed by your message

Email: info@theadvocacypeople.org.uk

If You’re Still Unhappy

If you are still unhappy following the investigation and conclusion of your complaint, you can ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to help.

The PHSO provide a free and completely independent complaint handling service. They will assess your complaint impartially and thoroughly, and let you know what they decide.

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

Telephone: 0345 015 4033 Website: www.ombudsman.org.uk

Top Tips When Making a Complaint

Be Clear

Work out what you want to say and, wherever possible include what happened, who was involved, when it happened, where it happened and how it affected you or someone else.

Be Concise

Give us all the relevant points but try to avoid putting in too much detail. If we need more information, we will contact you.

Include Contact Details

The Complaints Manager or the investigating officer may want to call you to discuss your concerns in more detail.

Complain ASAP

It’s best to complain as soon as possible while events are still fresh in your mind. Most NHS organisations won’t investigate complaints more than 12 months after the event.

Go Direct

It’s best to go directly to the care provider you have a complaint about first, as they may be able to resolve your concerns quickly.

Write It Down

If you write to or email the organisation rather than phoning, you are less likely to forget something. It also means you have evidence of making your complaint within the time frame.

Your Feedback Matters

Shore Medical is committed to listening and responding to the views and experiences of service users, patients and carers.

We want to hear about your experiences of our services. We want to hear your stories about your care and treatment. We will listen to what you have to say and respond.

Your feedback is important because it helps Shore Medical understand where they need to make improvements and where they are providing a good service.

What Happens to Your Feedback?

We look at all the feedback we receive. All the feedback you give us from our surveys are pulled together into reports.

From these we can see how good you think different aspects of our service are, what are the key issues we need to address and what you think we do well. Each team, Directorate and Division sees the reports about them.

We expect each team and Directorate to take action in response to their reports. Our Clinical Governance Group oversee and ensure that we are addressing the main issues raised in each area.

We collect your feedback from the surveys

We produce reports for each team that identify where they need to improve

We make improvements based on your feedback.