Complaints

Making a complaint about services provided by North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust.

(Peterborough City Hospital, Stamford and Rutland Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital)

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust is committed to putting patient care at the centre of all we do, and we actively encourage feedback from all service users and members of the public. We are sorry that you have experienced an issue that is cause for complaint.

Before raising a formal complaint, we encourage you to speak directly with the staff involved in your treatment and care, as often problems and concerns can be addressed and resolved quickly.

Alternatively, you can contact the Trust’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service Team (PALS) to discuss your concerns with caseworkers who can help to address your concerns promptly.  Addressing your concerns and complaints through the PALS service does not stop you from making a formal complaint at a later stage, but might help the Trust respond and provide quick resolution.

For further information on the PALS Service please visit our PALS page.

Making a Formal complaint

Your complaint to the Trust must be in writing by letter or email.

If you wish to make a verbal complaint, we will be required to arrange a convenient time for a member of the complaints team to speak with you to make a written statement of the concerns you are raising. We will then be required to share this with you and ask you to confirm that this is accurate. We are unable to investigate your concerns until you confirm that the written statement accurately reflects the details of the complaint you have raised.

When we receive your complaint, we will contact you within three working days to acknowledge that we have received your complaint and explain how our formal complaints process works. Your formal complaint will then need a full investigation conducted internally and a written response from the Trust is provided signed off by the Chief Executive working towards our current timeframe of 40 working days. Should we need any additional time a further 10 working day will be added and we will write to you explaining this.

It takes time to undertake a full investigation, because we want to:

  • enable staff to identify what happened
  • talk to the staff involved and review medical records
  • establish if there were any failings
  • learn from situations where something has gone wrong and change the way we work to prevent it happening again’
  • provide a full written response. 

We aim to give you explanations and answers in relation to the issues you have raised. We are never afraid to say sorry and, importantly, we will tell you what we are doing to improve our services as a result of the complaint you have made.

We assure you that if you make a complaint it will not negatively affect the care or treatment you receive, and details of any complaints made are kept separate from your medical records.

Please note:

  • Anyone can raise a complaint on behalf of a patient or a relative, but consent to share our finding will be required.  
  • You can raise a formal complaint within 12 months of becoming aware of the problem. Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, we can decide to still investigate a complaint outside of that timeframe if we have good reasons to do so. Please contact us using the details below if you have any questions.

When making a complaint, please ensure you provide:

  • Your full name, address and phone number.
  • When and where the problem happened.
  • The patient’s name, address and date of birth if you are writing on behalf of a relative or friend as well as your personal contact details (we will need appropriate consent if this is the case).
  • Relevant details about what happened.
  • A clear set of questions explaining what you would like us to investigate and provide answers to.
  • An indication of what outcome you would like to see from your complaint.

If on receipt of your final response you remain dissatisfied please let us know as soon as possible:

  • if you feel there are any questions we have not answered
  • if there are issues you feel we could take further action on
  • if you have any new cause for concern around the same episode of care which was not raised initially

We encourage you to contact us again so that we can either carry out further investigations, where appropriate or we might suggest a meeting at this stage to discuss your further concerns and complaint in its entirety. We can hold these meeting via Microsoft teams, telephone or in person.

We always try and resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. However, if you're still unhappy you are at liberty to contact The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman who investigates complaints about NHS services, including how complaints have been handled locally. The Ombudsman will not usually investigate unless you have complained to the Trust and had a final response.

You can visit their website to get information on their role and process.  Their website is www.ombudsman.org.uk and their contact details are:

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

Telephone: 0345 015 4033
Email: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk 

We hope that this information has explained how you can make a complaint and what will happen when it is received.

The Complaints Department details are as follows:

Phone: 01733 678028

Email:   nwangliaft.complaints@nhs.net

In writing:   

Complaints

‘The Hub’

Peterborough City Hospital

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

Edith Cavell Campus

Bretton Gate

Peterborough

PE3 9GZ