Complaints Policy

We are committed to ensuring that our centre learns lessons from complaints and uses these to improve our services.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received from our centre we would like to know about it as soon as possible so we can investigate your concerns and explain, apologise and take positive action where necessary. In most circumstances, if you tell us about your concern quickly, we can resolve matters straight away.

If you wish to raise a complaint, we kindly request that you ideally do so in writing. This ensures that both yourself and us have a clear understanding of the concerns that you are raising and so that we are best able to address and resolve your concerns. However if you will have accessibility difficulties in raising your request in writing, then you are welcome to verbally inform a member of our staff either in person or via the telephone.

A complaint can be raised via any of the following mechanisms:

• Completing our online Feedback Form, see: www.dr-giaroli.org/feedback and select “Raise a Complaint”.
• Writing to us at: Practice Manager, 75 Harley Street, London W1G 8QL
• Phoning our team on 020 7550 6222.
• Visiting our centre by attending 75 Harley Street, London W1G 8QL. We kindly ask if possible that you inform us of your attendance, so that we can ensure you are met by a member of our staff.

When raising your complaint, we kindly ask that you cover the following items:

You should state what has caused you to have concern(s) and make your point(s) clear.

Please document/describe when the relevant event(s) took place.

Please also let us know what action(s) we could take that would resolve your concern(s) for you.

Please find below a summary of the 3 different stages to our Complaints Resolution Procedure.

Stage 1

A member of our team will attempt to contact you via telephone or email to discuss your complaint within 2 business days of receiving your complaint. For expediency, we do kindly suggest that you complete our online form at www.dr-giaroli.org/feedback if possible, as there may be postal delays outside of our control if you were to post your complaint via the postal system.

We will endeavour to resolve your complaint within Stage 1.

Stage 2 (Formal Written Response)

If you remain dissatisfied following the final Stage 1 response, you may escalate your complaint to Stage 2. This involves a detailed investigation and a formal written response as to the outcome, which we would aim to provide you within 28 calendar days of your complaint having been raised in Stage 1. If we believed that it may be possible that your complaint is not formally responded to within this 28 calendar day timeline then we would write to you to provide you with an update and explanation as to when you should receive that formal response.

Stage 3 (Independent External Review)

If you remain dissatisfied following our final Stage 2 response, then please be advised that we are a subscriber to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), an independent charity which can provide dispute resolution services for unresolved complaints between patients and businesses.

If you remain dissatisfied with our findings CEDR can provide you with access to the services of a professional mediator at no charge to you.

You can view the details of what CEDR can provide, and when to they can do this, by visiting their website:

https://www.cedr.com/consumer/healthcare/privatehealthcaremediation/

CEDR’s contact details are:

Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution
100 St Paul’s Churchyard, London, EC4M 8BU
020 7520 3800
applications@cedr.com

The person within our centre who is handling your complaint may also refer your complaint to an appropriate external body if your complaint raises complex issues that require external expertise.

In order to ensure there is the greatest opportunity of conducting the most effective investigation into the concern(s) you are raising, please be advised that complaints should ideally be made as soon as possible, and ideally within 6 months of the date of the event(s) you are complaining about, or within 6 months of the matter coming to your attention.

However, our centre will still investigate any complaint raised over any previous period.

Assistance will be provided for complainants where required, both in terms of raising their complaint, and in the understanding of this policy itself e.g. for those with a disability or those whose first language is not English.

Depending on your particular circumstance we suggest you utilise the different contact methods outlined above in order to contact ourselves to raise your concern(s) or to understand our Complaints Policy itself.

For example, if you or the complainant has hearing and/or speaking difficulties, we kindly advise to contact ourselves in writing (either via email or the post) of your complaint; you are welcome to request us when doing so for any further written copies of our Complaints Policy such as this online text itself.

For example, if you or the complainant has difficulty with reading or writing, we suggest that you either visit our centre in person or phone us; where you may verbally hear about our Complaints Policy in person or over the telephone, as well as verbally explain to us your complaint.

For example, if you or the complainant’s first language is not English, then we suggest that you contact someone whom you trust whom is able to communicate directly with ourselves, or contact us via email/phone/post to request an interpreter to be made available for you, either to understand our Complaints Policy and/or to raise your complaint itself.

Our centre will not tolerate any abusive, threatening or intimidating language being used against any member of our staff.

Please find below our centre’s principles in regards to your complaint:

Your acknowledgement of a complaint will contain the contact details for the person who is handling your complaint and details of how the complaint will be dealt with.

Your complaint will be dealt with efficiently and thoroughly.

You shall be made aware of the outcome of any formal investigation into your complaint.

You have the right to an independent external review (Stage 3) if you are not satisfied with the way your complaint has been dealt with by us.

We commit to ensuring that all patients (and parents) are treated with courtesy and receive appropriate support throughout the handling of any complaint; and the fact you have complained will not adversely affect your child’s (or your) current or future treatment.

If a mistake is made we shall acknowledge it, and apologise, and provide you with an explanation of what went wrong; and we will resolve the problem quickly and effectively. We have a statutory Duty of Candour to provide you a full, honest and robust response to any situation which has caused (or had the potential to) cause harm.

In the handling of your complaint we will uphold your data confidentiality from those who are not party to the complaint’s resolution itself or any lessons we as an organisation may learn from the resolution of your complaint.

Where individual staff member(s) are mentioned specifically in your complaint, the matter will be investigated by the nominated individual whom is handling your complaint, whom will:

Inform the staff member(s) of the complaint being made against them.

Ensure that if practical that the member(s) of staff do not have any contact with yourself during the investigation period, or afterwards if deemed appropriate.

If appropriate, the staff member(s) will be asked to provide a factual report of any incident, identify issues that may have contributed to the concerns you have raised and suggest possible preventive measures.

Where the investigation of a complaint results in findings and recommendations about any individual staff member(s), the issues will be addressed through our Staff Disciplinary Policy.

If your complaint is about a specific individual who is the person who would otherwise be handling your complaint itself, then we will assign another suitably qualified individual from our team to handle your complaint, and advise you of their contact details.