Complaints Policy

Wellford Medical Clinic strive to provide the best possible service for our patients. However, we recognise that sometimes you may feel that we have not met your needs. If you have any complaint or concern about the service, you have received from the doctors or staff working at Wellford Medical Clinics please share your concerns or feedback with us.

We operate an in-house complaints procedure to deal with your complaint. This procedure does not deal with matters of legal liability or compensation.

Our promise to you

We will:

Listen to your complaint or concern
Respond by establishing a clear, appropriate plan of action, and provide you with relevant support and advice
Reflect on your complaint to improve our improve the service however we can

How to make your complaint

We hope that we can resolve your problem easily and promptly, often at the time the problem arises 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 do so as soon as possible (preferably within 3 months from the situation). This will enable us to establish what happened more easily.

You can raise your concern or complaint to any Wellford Medical Clinics staff member verbally, or via email.

You can also put your complaint in writing to the Complaint Manager. If you would like assistance with making your complaint a member of staff will be able to help you write down your complaint.

Please be assured that any complaint you make written or verbal will be treated in strict confidence and have no effect upon the level of treatment and care that you receive at Wellford Medical Clinics.

If you would prefer a family member, friend or advocate to make the complaint on your behalf, they may do so and the clinic will work with them and yourself to resolve the problem. However, whilst we can receive a complaint on your behalf we cannot provide any medical information to a third party without your consent.

To discuss or provide confidential information to third parties, we would require a consent signed and dated by you. A member of our staff would be happy to assist you with this.

What happens next

Your complaint will be acknowledged within 5 working days of receiving it. This may be in the form of an email or phone call from the appointed Wellford Complaint Manager to you (or your advocate) to make sure we fully understand your complaint. However, we aim to resolve as many issues as possible immediately if this does not require an investigation.

We aim to make a full response to you within the next 28 working days. During that time the clinic will conduct an investigation for formal complaints received to find out what has happened and whether there is any action that can be taken to put things right. If at the end of those 28 days we are still conducting our investigations, we will notify you of the position and keep you fully informed until our investigation has been concluded.

As a result of the clinic investigation we will:

Make sure you receive an apology
Find out what has happened and what went wrong
Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this
Keep you informed of our progress
Identify what we can do to make sure that problem does not reoccur

Getting further help with your complaint

We hope that through our clinic complaints procedure we can resolve your problem satisfactorily. We believe that this will give us the best chance to put the matter right with you and the opportunity to improve our services for all our patients.

1. Right to Appeal

Patients have the right to appeal the outcome of their complaint if they are dissatisfied with the response or resolution provided.

2. How to Appeal

Appeals should be submitted in writing within a specified timeframe, typically within 14 days of receiving the response.
The appeal should clearly state the reasons for dissatisfaction and any additional information or evidence the patient wishes to be considered.

3. Review of Appeal

Upon receipt, the appeal will be acknowledged in writing within 5 working days.
The appeal will be reviewed independently by a senior manager or a member of the organisation’s leadership team who was not involved in the original complaint investigation.
The reviewer may seek further information or invite the patient to a meeting to discuss their concerns in more detail.
Following the review, a written decision will be provided within 20 working days, outlining the findings and any further actions to be taken.
The decision on the appeal is final within the organisation’s complaints process.

However, if you feel that your complaint is not being dealt with in a satisfactory manner you may contact Care Quality Commission on 03000 616161.