Complaints

If you have a complaint or concern about the service you have received from the doctors or any of the staff working in this Practice, please let us know. We operate a practice complaints procedure as part of an NHS system for dealing with complaints. ur complaints 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. 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 a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem, or
• Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided this is within 12 months of this incident

Complaints should be addressed to the Complaints Officer, Mrs Eileen Rae, or the Deputy Complaints Officer, Miss Gail McKidd. Alternatively, you may ask for an appointment with either Mrs Rae or Miss McKidd in order to discuss your concerns. The complaints procedure will be explained and your concerns will be dealt with promptly. It will be a great help if you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

What We Shall Do

We shall acknowledge your complaint within two working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within fourteen working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to give you an explanation or offer a meeting with those involved. In investigating your complaint we shall aim to:

• Find out what happened and what went wrong.
• Enable you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this.
• Ensure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate.
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again.

Complaining on Behalf of Someone Else

Please note that we keep strictly to the rules of medical confidentiality. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we have to know that you have their permission to do so. A note signed by the person concerned will be needed, unless they are incapable (because of illness) of providing this.

Complaining to the Health Board

We hope that if you have a problem you will make use of our practice complaints procedure. We believe that this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. But this does not affect your right to approach the Health Board if you feel you cannot raise your complaint with us or if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation. You should contact the Health Board Complaints Officer at the following address for further advice:

The Complaints Officer
 NHS Grampian 
181 Union Street
ABERDEEN
Tel: 0845 337 6338

Suggestions

Your suggestions on how we can improve our service to patients are always appreciated. If you have a suggestion, please complete the online Suggestion Form below or you can download our SuggestionForm.doc and return it to us, marked for the attention of the Practice Manager.