Suggestions, Comments and Complaints

We make every effort to give the best service possible to everyone who attends our surgery.

In the majority of cases the best way to resolve your concerns as quickly as possible is with reception or directly with the service or organisation that you are complaining about.

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 wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible.

Forge Close Surgery follows 6 principles when dealing with complaints:

Getting it right
Being open and accountable
Putting things right
Being customer focused
Acting fairly & proportionately
Seeking continuous improvement

First please speak to reception who may be able to assist with your concern raised or you can contact the Practice Manager in writing by sending/handing in a letter to the surgery or via our email address [email protected].

All written complaints will be dealt with within 6 weeks from date of receipt of the complaint.

You need to make your complaint within 12 months of the incident that caused the problem OR within 12 months of discovering that you have a problem relating to a specific incident.

The Practice Manager has overall responsibility for the complaints system though your complaint may be assigned to another member of the team to deal with.

We are continually striving to improve our service. Any helpful and any positive feedback / suggestions would be much appreciated.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

Medical records are protected by the Data Protection Act 1998. If you are complaining on behalf of someone else we need to know that you have their permission to do so. A letter signed by the person concerned will be needed unless they are incapable (e.g. due to illness) of providing this.

What we will do

We will send out a holding letter to your home address within three working days and offer to discuss with you the best way to investigate it, including the time scales for a reply. We try to reply to all complaints within 6 weeks, but sometimes it can take up to and over 6 months depending on the nature of the complaint and whether we need to involve our medical legal team. Note: we only send complaints via post to your home address on your records. If there is a delay in responding to your complaint, we will advise you as soon as possible.

We will aim to:

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 that the surgery was unable to resolve your issues then you can get in contact with NHS South East London ICB and the contact details below.