Comments, Suggestions and Complaints

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If you have a complaint or concerns about the service you have received from the doctors, nurses, any of the staff working in this practice or doctors covering the out of hours service, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of an NHS system for dealing with complaints. Our complaint system meets national criteria.

How to Complain

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily, and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. However, if your problem cannot be sorted out in this way, and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible - ideally within a matter of days or at most, within a few weeks - because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If this is not possible, please let us have the details of your complaint:

a. Within 6 months of the incident occurring, or

b. Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident occurring.

Initial action

Complaints should be addressed to Iain Marley, the Practice Manager, or any of the doctors.

Iain can be contacted in writing here at the surgery or alternatively, via email, at iain.marley@nhs.net.

Alternatively, you can book an appointment with Iain to discuss your concerns.

He will explain the complaints procedure to you and will make sure that your concerns are dealt with promptly.

It would be of great help to him if you could have precise details of your problem available.

We have produced a Complaints Form to help you do this. A copy of the form can be collected from reception or downloaded from from this website.

What we will do

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 2 working days of the date you raised the matter with us and aim to have looked in to your complaint and replied to you within 10 working days. We will then be in a position to offer an explanation, or arrange a meeting with the people involved

When we investigate your complaint, we will aim to:

a. Find out what happened and what went wrong

b. Make it possible to discuss the problem with those concerned (if agreeable)

c. Where appropriate, ensure you receive an apology

d. Identify what can be done to ensure that the problem does not re-occur

Complaining on behalf of somebody

Please note that we abide strictly to the rules of patient and medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of somebody else, we have to ensure you have their permission to do so.

The person should sign the Complaints Form giving you permission to complain on their behalf. A letter signed by the person will also be accepted.

The signed consent may be waived if the person concerned is incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

Complaining to the Primary Care Trust

We hope that, if you do have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure.

We believe that this will give us the best chance to put right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our service.

However, this does not affect your right to approach the Primary Care Trust if you feel you cannot raise the matter with us or if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.

In such cases, you should contact:

Carole Johncey
Patient Liaison Manager
Poole House
Stokesley Road
Nunthorpe
Middlesbrough
TS7 0NJ

Tel: 01642 320000

You may also wish to contact ICAS (Independent Complaints Advocacy Service) for help and assistance. They can be contacted at:

ICAS
Cleveland Business Centre
1 Watson Street
Middlesbrough
TS1 2RQ

Tel: 01642 254500