Feedback and Complaints

What do you think of our services?

As a practice we are committed to providing the best care we can to our community and your feedback helps us to recognise what we do well and to act on areas for improvement.

The Friends and Family Test is a way for patients to recognise great service. Patients can give anonymous feedback quickly and have their say on the care and treatment they experience at our practices. It helps to improve our services by highlighting what is working well and what can be improved. 

We send a text message to everyone with a mobile phone after their appointment to see how we’ve done and paper versions are available at reception.

In 2018/9, 5447 patients responded and 87.3% would recommend us to friends and family.

Online Feedback Form

Making a complaint

Most problems can be sorted out quickly and easily, often at the time they arise with the person concerned and this may be the approach you try first. Where you are not able to resolve your complaint in this way and wish to make a formal complaint you should do so preferably in writing as soon as possible after the event and ideally within a few days, as this helps us to establish what happened more easily. In any event, this should be within 12 months of the incident, or within 12 months of you discovering it. Please provide as as much detail as you can.

If you are a registered patient you can complain about your own care. You are unable to complain about someone else’s treatment without their written authority. Complaints should be made in writing, and upon receipt this will be allocated to the most appropriate manager who will investigate your complaint and respond.

Send your written complaint to:

  • Patient Liaison and Communications Lead
    Plympton Health Centre
    Mudge Way
    Plymouth
    PL7 1AD

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome…

You have the right to approach the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman. Their contact details are:

Alternatively…

You may also approach PALS for help or advice. The Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) is based at Devon Clinical Commissioning Group who provide confidential advice and support, helping you to sort out any concerns you may have about the care we provide, guiding you through the different services available from the NHS.

What we do next

We aim to settle complaints as soon as possible.

We will usually acknowledge receipt within three working days and aim to resolve the matter as soon as possible, but will give you some idea of how long that may take at the outset. You will then receive a formal reply in writing, or you may be invited to meet with the person(s) concerned to attempt to resolve the issue. If the matter is likely to take longer than this we will let you know, and keep you informed as the investigation progresses.

When looking into a complaint, we attempt to see what happened and why, to see if there is something we can learn from this, and make it possible for you to discuss the issue with those involved if you wish to do so.

When the investigations are complete, a final written response will be sent to you.

Where your complaint involves more than one organisation we will liaise with that organisation so that you receive one coordinated reply. We may need your consent to do this. Where your complaint has been sent initially to an incorrect organisation, we may seek your consent to forward this to the correct person to deal with.

The final response letter will include details of the result of your complaint and also your right to escalate the matter further if you remain dissatisfied with the response.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

We keep to the strict rules of medical and personal confidentiality. If you wish to make a complaint and are not the patient involved, we will require the written consent of the patient to confirm that they are unhappy with their treatment and that we can deal with someone else about it.

Please ask at reception for the Complaints Form which contains a suitable authority for the patient to sign to enable the complaint to proceed.

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 covering letter.

Please note that we are unable to discuss any issue relating to someone else without their express permission, which must be in writing, unless the circumstances above apply.
We may still need to correspond direct with the patient, or may be able to deal direct with the third party, and this depends on the wording of the authority provided.

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