We always welcome feedback about our Practice and services we provide. Patient feedback is important to us, and we appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have.
Complaints
We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our Practice.
However, we are aware that things can go wrong, resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would like the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.
To have your complaint investigated, you need to complain within 12 months of the event happening, or as soon as you first become aware of the issue you want to complain about.
The time limit can be extended in special circumstances.
Interpreting Service
We can arrange for a meeting with the Practice Manager and an Interpreter for any patient whose first language is not English and needs help with their complaint.
How to make a compliment or complaint
Whether you are happy or unhappy with the care and treatment that you have received, please get in touch and let us know your views.
Receiving compliments and complaints is important to ensuring good quality local healthcare in our Practice – helping us to find out more about what we’re getting right and what we can improve.
We hope this will help you to make your feelings and experiences known to the appropriate people. Should you have a complaint we hope this page will give you more information about what to do, who to contact and what happens next.
How do I raise a concern / informal complaint?
You can speak to any member of staff initially with your complaint. This gives you the opportunity to resolve any concern you may have without it going through a formal process.
Most complaints are best resolved within the practice and these should be made via the Practice Manager at Practice Manager at Mercheford House Surgery, Elwyn Road, March PE15 9BY.
Formal Complaint
What we will do
We will contact you about your complaint within three working days and offer to discuss with you the best way to investigate it, including the time scales for a reply. We will aim to offer you an explanation within that time frame. Or a meeting with the people involved.
- Find out what happened and what went wrong
- Invite you to discuss the problem with those involved, if you would like this
- Apologise where this is appropriate
- Identify what we can do to make sure that the problem does not happen again.
If you feel you do not want to contact the surgery directly, you can contact your local integrated care board (ICB) by following this link:
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough ICS Patient Experience Team | CPICS Website
In General
If you have a complaint to make, you can either contact the Practice Manager or ask the Receptionist for a copy of our Complaints Procedure. We will endeavour to:
- acknowledge any letter or Complaints Form within 3 working days of receiving it.
- deal with the matter as promptly as possible – usually within 20 working days – dependent on the nature of the complaint.
Who can complain
- Complainants may be current or former patients, or their nominated or elected representatives (who have been given consent to act on the patients behalf).
- Patients over the age of 16 whose mental capacity is unimpaired should normally complain themselves or authorise someone to bring a complaint on their behalf.
- Children under the age of 16 can also make their own complaint, if they’re able to do so.
If a patient lacks capacity to make decisions, their representative must be able to demonstrate sufficient interest in the patient’s welfare and be an appropriate person to act on their behalf. This could be a partner, relative or someone appointed under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 with lasting power of attorney.
Appropriate person
In certain circumstances, we need to check that a representative is the appropriate person to make a complaint.
- For example, if the complaint involves a child, we must satisfy ourselves that there are reasonable grounds for the representative to complain, rather than the child concerned.
- If the patient is a child or a patient who lacks capacity, we must also be satisfied that the representative is acting in the patient’s best interests.
If we are not satisfied that the representative is an appropriate person we will not consider the complaint, and will give the representative the reasons for our decision in writing.
Time limits
A complaint must be made within 12 months, either from the date of the incident or from when the complainant first knew about it.
The regulations state that a responsible body should only consider a complaint after this time limit if:
- the complainant has good reason for doing so, and
- it’s still possible to investigate the complaint fairly and effectively, despite the delay.
Procedure
We have a two stage complaints procedure. We will always try to deal with your complaint quickly however if it is clear that the matter will need a detailed investigation, we will notify you and then keep you updated on our progress.
Stage one – Early, local resolution
- We will try to resolve your complaint within five working days if possible.
- If you are dissatisfied with our response, you can ask us to escalate your complaint to Stage Two.
Stage Two – Investigation
- We will look at your complaint at this stage if you are dissatisfied with our response at Stage One.
- We also escalate some complaints straight to this stage, if it is clear that they are complex or need detailed investigation.
- We will acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and we will give you our decision as soon as possible. This will be no more that 20 working days unless there is clearly a good reason for needing more time to respond.
Complain to the Ombudsman
If, after receiving our final decision, you remain dissatisfied you may take your complaint to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman is independent of the NHS and free to use. It can help resolve your complaint, and tell the NHS how to put things right if it has got them wrong.
The Ombudsman only has legal powers to investigate certain complaints. You must have received a final response from the Practice before the Ombudsman can look at your complaint and it will generally not look into your complaint if it happened more than 12 months ago, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Address:
Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman
Citygate, 51 Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3HQ
Other organisations that can help you make a complaint about health services
Confidentiality
All complaints will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Where the investigation of the complaint requires consideration of the patient’s medical records, we will inform the patient or person acting on his/her behalf if the investigation will involve disclosure of information contained in those records to a person other than the Practice or an employee of the Practice.
We keep a record of all complaints and copies of all correspondence relating to complaints, but such records will be kept separate from patients’ medical records
Statistics and reporting
The Practice must submit to the local primary care organisation periodically/at agreed intervals details of the number of complaints received and actioned.
Give feedback or make a complaint
You can complain to a member of staff at the NHS service you went to, such as a GP surgery or hospital, or you can complain to the organisation in charge.
Compliments
We welcome your comments on things we are doing well within the practice.
If you would like to make a suggestion or provide us with any feedback. Please contact us by writing to the Practice Manager.
Your feedback is extremely important to us as it helps us to see what we are doing well. You do not need to give your name or contact details if you do not wish to.
Non-urgent advice: Please note
Friends & Family Test
The NHS want you to have the best possible experience of care. The NHS Friends and Family Test is a way of gathering your feedback, so we can continually review and improve our service to you.
“How likely are you to recommend our GP Practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?”
Your feedback will help us learn more about what you think of your experience — what you like and what you think we could improve. Ultimately, you’re helping us to make changes that will ensure we can offer the best possible care.
Patient Participation Group
Applying for patient participation group
We are looking to start up a patient participation group. We will need to read through the applications before we give out any details, please bear with us during this process.
Contact us
What is the Patient Participation Group or PPG?
A Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a group of people who are patients of the surgery and want to help it work as well as it can for patients, doctors and staff. The NHS requires every practice to have a PPG.
Why should I join?
You have been to the surgery as a patient, parent, carer or friend.
Your experiences matter and you can bring different ideas to the surgery to help us treat patients better or to improve what we do in some way.
You will also gain a better understanding of the NHS, and gather feedback from other patients.
What do PPGs do?
PPGs usually meet on a regular basis to discuss the services on offer. They will look at how improvements can be made for the benefit of patients and the practice. Depending on the skills, availability, and motivation of those involved, what you can do in your PPG can vary.
For example, PPGs undertake an annual patient survey to improve ways of working and relationships between patients and the practice.
The National Association of Patient Participation
This association aims to promote the role and benefits of PPGs to patients, the public and health professionals, to create more understanding of the value of true patient participation also to promote the support available from N.A.P.P. Find out more about them click here.
The information you supply us will be used lawfully, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. The Data Protection Act 2018 gives you the right to know what information is held about you and sets out rules to make sure that this information is handled properly.
How do I join the PPG?
If you wish to participate please contact the Practice, email cpicb.merchefordhouseppg@nhs.net or complete the online form below.
OR: if you prefer, you can download the sign-up form below, print it out, fill it in, and post it to the Practice, put it through the letterbox, or hand it to a Receptionist.
Download the pdf version of our sign up form
We aim to acknowledge your request within a few days.
Please note that the PPG cannot become involved in matters of a specifically medical or clinical nature.
Patient Opinion
If you’ve encountered healthcare recently, either as a patient yourself or as a carer or friend of another patient, we would like to hear about your experience. Your story will be handled confidentially by the non-profit service, Patient Opinion, and may appear (without your name) on their website. Patient Opinion asks the Health Service to respond to the feedback you share, but does not reveal your identity.
Patient Survey
The GP Patient Survey is an independent survey run by Ipsos MORI on behalf of NHS England. The survey is sent out to over two million people across England. The results show how people feel about their GP practice.