Compliments, Comments and Complaints

The best way to make a complaint is to speak to a member of staff who is involved in your care. It is the responsibility of an appropriately experienced manager of the hospital, clinic or care home to look into and to respond to all of your concerns. Our aim is to resolve any problems as quickly and informally as possible. In some cases, for example, a discussion with an appropriate member of staff may be all that is required to put things right.

If you do not wish to speak to a member of staff, or if you are unhappy with the way in which they have dealt with your earlier concerns, you can take your complaint directly to the service manager.

If you would prefer to put your compliment, comment or complaint in writing, please address your letter to the Hospital Director or Registered Manager at the relevant Priory site. You can search for contact details using the following links:

Priory Healthcare - services for the NHS

Private Private Healthcare

Priory Adult Care

If you are unhappy about something, then it is always best to make your complaint as soon as possible and within six months after the date of the event complained about, or as soon as the matter first came to the attention of the complainant. This time limit can sometimes be extended (as long as it is still possible to investigate the complaint). An extension might be possible, such as in situations where it would have been difficult to have complained earlier, for example, when someone was grieving or unwell.

You will be contacted by the Service Manager within two working days of our receiving your complaint, to acknowledge your concerns and to advise you on who will be investigating your complaint, when you can expect to receive a written response, together with an invitation to meet to discuss your concerns in more detail, if this would be helpful.

You will generally receive a written response within 20 working days of receipt of your complaint. However, it can sometimes take longer than this to carry out a full and thorough investigation, particularly if your complaint is very complex. In such cases, we will let you know the reason for any delay and tell you when we anticipate being able to respond in full.

Whilst investigating your complaint, the service manager may need to telephone you to talk about aspects of your concern or to extend an offer to meet with you if you have not previously met as part of the process. It would therefore be helpful if you could provide a postal address and telephone number for us to contact you.

To investigate your complaint, we will need to discuss the concerns with clinicians and managers involved in the delivery of service user care and treatment. However, service users, their families or representatives are assured of confidentiality at all times.

It is important to be clear what you want to happen as a result of the complaint you are submitting. You may want:

• An apology
• Someone to explain what has happened
• Some changes or improvements to be made
• To make sure the same thing does not happen again

If you are dissatisfied with the way in which the service has handled your complaint, you may request that it be referred to stage 2 of the Priory complaint process, that of internal review. Details on this will be provided at the end of the stage 1 letter of response.

Similarly, should the stage 2 internal review of a complaint not provide a satisfactory resolution to your continued concerns, there remains a final opportunity to refer your complaint for external or independent adjudication/review. These arrangements are detailed further in separate complaint process documentation - please see the next question and answer.

Please review the following documents:

• Priory ‘Making a Complaint’ booklet – guide for service users (UNDER REVIEW)
• Priory Mumbles and Grumbles leaflet – basic guide aimed at young people (UNDER REVIEW)
• Priory Complaint Policy – OP03 Complaints (UNDER REVIEW)