Raising a concern or making a complaint

We are sorry that you have had cause to complain but thank you for giving us the opportunity to investigate your concerns. We are committed to providing high standards of healthcare to all our patients and welcome feedback and the chance to improve our services. 

If you do need to contact us again, our details are as follows:

Complaints Manager 

Quality & Safety Department, UCL Hospitals 2nd Floor West 

250 Euston Road London 

NW1 2PG 

Email: uclh.complaints@nhs.net 

Tel: 0203 447 7413, if you do not get through to someone, please leave a voicemail and we will aim to return your call as quickly as possible. Please note that the complaints team works remotely. 

If you write or contact the Chief Executive or his office about a complaint, then it will be referred to the complaints team to manage under our local trust complaints process. 

Is there a time limit to make a complaint?

Under the NHS Complaints Regulations, you have a year to make a complaint after becoming aware of the issue. Although we may be able to investigate some complaints after this time, our response may be limited. Your care should not be adversely affected by making a complaint. 

If you require support

There is a free and independent advocacy service that can help you make a complaint about the National Health Service (NHS). For details of your local advocacy service please call 0203 553 5960, visit the POhWER website or email LondonIHCAS@pohwer.net as they cover most of the country and can signpost to alternative options when they occur. 

They are best placed to help you draft a complaint especially if you are unsure about what you want to say to the trust, or the issues are complex. 

If you submit a verbal complaint to the complaints team, we will then need to send it back to you to check that it captures all the concerns you wish to raise. As this can slow the process down, we would encourage you to write or email us if you are able to. 

Confidentiality

As part of our investigation, it may be necessary for the lead investigator, who may or may not have been involved in your care, to refer to your health records and our response may include references to medical information about you. We will also need your consent if you want us to coordinate with other healthcare providers if your complaint is not just about UCLH. If you do not want us to do this, please tell us, but this may limit our ability to deal with your complaint. 

However, please be assured that in line with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), information about complaints and anyone involved is strictly confidential and is only disclosed to those with a demonstrable need to know and/or a legal right to access those records. 

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else

If you are making a complaint on behalf of someone else, we require their written consent for their personal information, deemed relevant to the investigation, to be shared with you (this is to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998). 

What happens after we receive your complaint? 

We will do our best to resolve your concerns and we ask that you give us time to do so. If we can resolve the matter quickly, every effort will be made to do so. 

If the matter requires investigation and a written response, this will take time and the investigation will usually be led by the most appropriate clinical division. We will look at the complexity of your complaint and advise you of a time frame. This can be several months for complex complaints but for the majority we are currently aiming to respond within a minimum 30 working days. 

You should be kept informed about the progress of your complaint

• we aim to acknowledge your complaint within three working days of receiving it. 
• the relevant department may then need to contact you to talk about what happened and to agree how you would like your complaint dealt with, and to give you a contact for any other concerns (this will be within a week) 
• you should be given a date to expect the response 
• if we need longer to complete our investigation this should be discussed or explained to you 
• if you have other questions after you have submitted your initial complaint then do let us know, although this may affect the timescale for your response. 

If you are not satisfied with the response

You can ask us to: 

• Clarify points or give you further information or consider a reinvestigation. 
• Consider a meeting, in which you could bring a representative (eg, a friend or a family member). 
• If we do not believe there is more that can be offered to resolve your concerns, we will signpost you to the Ombudsman (see below), explaining that local resolution has completed. 

The Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)

If you’re not happy with our final response to your complaint, and would like to take the matter further, you can contact the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. The Ombudsman makes final decisions on complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS, government departments and some other public organisations. The service is free for everyone. To contact the Ombudsman, call 0345 015 4033 or visit to the Ombudsman website. They have an online form and will require your complaint to be in writing. There are time limits for the Ombudsman to consider complaints so you should contact them as soon as possible after receiving our final response. The Ombudsman will not usually investigate until you have completed the local resolution process. 

Learning from your experiences

We cannot change what has already happened, however we aim to use the lessons we learn from complaints and our investigations to improve services for patients.