A patient’s guide to feeding back or making a complaint

What’s the easiest way to feedback or make a complaint?

We encourage all our patients to give us feedback so that we can understand your views, make your priorities ours and continuously improve our services. One great tool we use for this is our Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire, which will be sent to you by email.

Please rest assured that the feedback you give us is anonymous and reviewed monthly, as well as quarterly. We take your comments and feedback seriously and are committed to sharing what’s gone well, as well as what hasn’t, with our teams throughout the organisation. 

We want your whole experience with HCA UK to be a positive one so all your comments and complaints are welcome, whether they’re about your clinical or nursing experience, your accommodation, food or our administrative approach. We promise to respond to any concerns or complaints as considerately, quickly and as effectively as possible.

When can I offer you feedback or make complaint?

Listening to you is how we keep improving, so you’re welcome to feed back to us or make a formal or informal complain t at any time. Your experience matters to us, so please don’t hesitate to be open and honest.

• During your stay in hospital: Each area has a manager, please ask to speak to them directly as they’re always happy to help. Alternatively, ask to see the senior person on duty.
• On your discharge from hospital: You’ll be offered the opportunity to complete our Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire. Each questionnaire is reviewed and any required action is taken by the hospital.
• After your discharge from hospital: If you have any complaints, please email ListerPatientFeedback@HCAHealthcare.co.uk as soon as possible so that we can quickly resolve the problem.

What’s your complaints process?

We have a formal and well-structured complaints process to ensure that your concerns are properly investigated and that you’re given a full and prompt response that leaves you feeling satisfied. 

Any complaint we receive is treated in confidence and we pride ourselves on investigating your comments and feedback courteously and sympathetically.

 

What’s the first step?

Our complaints procedure has three stages:

1. Local resolution - At this level, your complaint will be handled by the hospital’s senior management team and Chief Executive Officer. They will:

• Carry out an investigation and explain what happened to you
• Take steps to help put the matters right and reassure you that we have done so

2. Internal Appeal – If you’re not happy with the resolution achieved in Stage 1, you can ask for an internal review as part of stage 2 of our complaints process. At this point, your complaint will be elevated  and become the responsibility of HCA UK’s Group Chief Executive.

3. Independent External Adjudication - At this level, the external adjudication organisation ‘Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service’ (ISCAS) will handle your complaint to ensure that the best resolution is reached, as quickly as possible.

How do I make a written complaint?

Because HCA UK is a large organisation with many moving parts employing a huge number of people across many locations and specialisms, it’s useful if you can make a formal complaint in writing either by email or by post. This will help us ensure that we fully understand the details of your complaint. You can email your written complaint to ListerPatientFeedback@HCAHealthcare.co.uk or post it to Lister Fertility Clinic, Chelsea Bridge Road, London, SW1W 8RH.

Before making a complaint, it’s important to think about what you hope to achieve and it’s helpful if you can communicate that to us within your correspondence.
Your complaint should include:

• Who or what exactly has caused your concern
• Where and when the problematic events took place
• What action you’ve already taken to raise your concerns, if any
• What results you want from your complaint

The involved hospital’s Chief Executive Officer will acknowledge your complaint letter within three  working days, unless a full reply can be sent within five working days of receiving it. 

All documentation relating to your complaint will be forwarded to the person at the hospital concerned who’s responsible for handling the complaint. 

The Chief Executive Officer is responsible for investigating the complaint and the hospital or outpatient facility will write to you sharing their findings and proposed solution within 20 working days. If a full response cannot be given at this point, you’ll receive a letter explaining the reason for the delay. In any event, you’ll receive a holding letter every 20 working days until the matter is resolved.

When investigating your complaint, the Chief Executive Officer or another senior manager may offer to call you to talk about your concerns, or they may offer to meet you in person. After the call or meeting, if no further action is proposed, the hospital will send you a full written response.

What happens if I make a verbal complaint?

If you make a verbal complaint to a member of staff, it’s a good idea to make a note of when you did this and who you spoke to. The department manager will attempt to resolve your complaint immediately.

If that’s not possible, your complaint will be further investigated. The investigation will be completed within two working days if you’re still in hospital.

If you’ve already been discharged, you’ll receive a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within two working days of you making it and then a full response from the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer or Chief Nursing Officer within 20 working days.

What happens if I’m not happy with the response I receive?

Our aim is to deal with your complaint as quickly as possible, at hospital level. If you’re not happy with our response, please inform the involved hospital’s Chief Executive Officer and explain why. At this point, you can ask for your complaint to progress to an internal appeal (Stage 2).
 
It's the responsibility of the Group Chief Executive Officer of HCA Healthcare UK based at 2 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PU to manage that internal appeal, so you can write them to request and initiate this. You’ll need to do this within 6 months of the date of the final written response from the involved hospital’s Chief Executive Officer.

You’ll receive an acknowledgment of your appeal within three  working days of the Group Chief Executive Officer receiving it, unless a full reply can be sent within 5 working days. They’ll consider the complaint and may undertake a review of all the correspondence relating to your appeal and how the issues you raised have been handled at hospital level. 

The Group Chief Executive Officer will either confirm the decisions and actions taken by the hospital Chief Executive Officer, or they’ll offer an alternative solution. You’ll receive a full response within 20 working days of the Group Chief Executive Officer receiving your appeal or, if their investigations are still in process, you’ll receive a holding letter every 20 working days to acknowledge that your complaint is still live, until the matter is resolved.

What if I’m not happy with the outcome of the internal appeal?

If you’re dissatisfied with the internal appeal and the decision of the Group Chief Executive Officer, you have an absolute right to refer the matter to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS). You can go to www.iscas.org.uk to find out who they are and how they operate.

You must write to the ISCAS Secretariat within 6 months of the final decision issued by the Group Chief Executive Officer in the hospital’s internal review. The ISCAS Secretariat will then raise the complaint with the hospital within ten working days of receiving it. Once they’ve received it, the hospital will send all the relevant information to them so that they have everything they need to make a clear and fair decision. 

You can request an independent adjudication of HCA Healthcare UK decision by writing to:
Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service Ltd
70 Fleet Street 
London
EC4Y 1EU

You don’t have to pay a fee for this service as the costs are met by HCA UK’s own ISCAS membership. They’ll appoint a Principal Adjudicator. They’ll be independent of ISCAS and its membership and they have the right to any reject case without a hearing. ISCAS will confirm that the complaint has completed Stages 1 and 2 and then will request clarification from the complainant that they are willing to agree to the terms of ISCAS.

They’ll provide a written acknowledgement to you within 2 working days of receiving documentation relating to your complaint from ISCAS. They’ll also provide a full adjudication decision within 20 working days or send you a letter explaining the reason for the delay, every 20 working days as a minimum. 

They’ll consider a wide range of ways forward, including asking HCA UK:

• To provide an explanation and apology, where appropriate
• To take action to put things right
• To share details of how the organisation has learnt from the complaint and any changes made as a result
• To offer a goodwill payment in recognition of shortfalls in the complaint handling, inconvenience, distress, or any combination of these, up to a limit of £5,000. Any goodwill payment awarded by the Independent External Adjudicator should take account of any outstanding claim that HCA UK has with you, such as for unpaid hospital fees. If you accept this goodwill payment, this will bring all matters covered by complaint to a close.