Suggestions

We welcome comments on the services provided. These should be directed to the Practice Manager, Mr Chris Maddison.

Complaints

We always try to provide the best service possible, but there may be times when you feel this has not happened. The following information explains our in-house complaints procedure, drawn up to respond to patient grievances. We hope you will use it to allow us to look into, and, if necessary, correct any problems that you have identified, or mistakes that have been made.

All complaints made to Lerwick Health Centre will be viewed as valuable feedback and lessons learned will be shared across the organisation in order to rectify mistakes and to improve the quality of services for the future.

How to complain

Complaints should be made as soon as possible after the event. They are treated in confidence, will not be filed on your medical records and will not affect your treatment in any way. If someone else (e.g. a relative or friend) complains on your behalf, we will need your written consent for that person to act for you.

If you wish to make a formal complaint, please do so as soon as possible – ideally within a matter of a few days as this will enable us to establish what happened more easily.

You should address your complaint to the Practice Manager, Chris Maddison who will make sure that we deal with your concerns promptly and in the correct way.

What we will do

We aim to acknowledge all formal complaints within three working days and a full investigation will take place. The Practice Manager will provide you with a full response, which should usually be within ten working days. If it’s not possible to respond within this timescale, you will be contacted and told regularly what is happening. A full response should include:

• An apology, if appropriate
• A detailed answer to each part of your complaint
• An offer of a meeting with you, if appropriate
• Details of any action that has been taken to prevent the problem happening again