See also - ‘If you are not satisfied with your care services’ in
section Care services (community care etc).

Each local authority must have a written complaints procedure in place and should give advice and encouragement to those who might wish to use it.

The procedure should include the right to refer your complaint to an independent review panel if you are dissatisfied with the outcome, and then on to the Local Government Ombudsman if you are still not satisfied.

The Public Law Project , Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR, in response to a large s.a.e envelope will send you a free self-help pack including a flow chart and standard letters that you can adapt for your own circumstances.

Action for Victims of Medical Accident, Bank Chambers, 1 London Road, Forest Hill, London SE23 3TP (Tel: 0208 291 2793; Fax: 0208 699 0632)

Serious complaints which may call into question the clinical judgement of a doctor may well involve legal action, and will certainly do so if you are seeking compensation. In these circumstances you will need to consult a solicitor.

If you decide to use the NHS complaints procedure, you need to act as quickly as possible: the complaint should be made within six months of the date of the incident that caused the problem, or, as the case may be, within six months of the date of discovering the problem, provided this is within 12 months of the incident. Complaints may be investigated outside these time limits but only at the discretion of the health provider.

The first stage is to complain directly to the service provider, e.g. a GP, hospital, ambulance service, dentist, pharmacist or optician. Should you be unable to resolve your complaint in this way, you can ask for an independent review, preferably by writing direct to the health authority. Your request will be handled by a ’covenor’, appointed for this purpose by the health authority, and must reach him/her within 20 days of you being informed of the completion of the local resolution stage. You do not have an automatic right to a review: you will need to convince the covenor that there are adequate grounds for setting up an independent review panel. The covenor may suggest an alternative way to resolve the complaint, e.g. by referral back to the service provider, conciliation by an independent third party, or by advising you of your right to take the matter to the Ombudsman.

If the covenor decides that your complaint should be considered by an independent review panel, he/she will arrange this. The panel will be chaired by an independent lay person and the majority of members will be independent of the service provider. If there are questions on clinical judgement, the panel will include at least two independent clinical assessors. There will not be a formal hearing, but you and other parties to the complaint may well be invited to an interview or meeting.

The panel will present its findings in writing and you will have the opportunity to comment on them before a final report is sent to the chief executive of the trust or health authority concerned, who will then advise you of the action, if any, they will be taking in the light of the report.

Action for Victims of Medical Accident (address above) has also prepared a helpful summary.

If you believe that your complaint has not been properly investigated under the NHS complaints procedure, the Ombudsman may be able to carry out an investigation. The Ombudsman has wide powers of investigation, although Parliament has excluded certain matters (for instance, complaints which have been taken to a tribunal or a court of law) from his/her jurisdiction. Further details are given in leaflets available from the following addresses, to which complaints should also be addressed: