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Comments, Concerns, Complaints

Providing Us With Your Feedback

Despite our very best efforts to ensure that every patient has a positive experience, there will be occasions when patients or visitors may be unhappy with some aspect of their care or the environment.

We hope that if you are unhappy with any aspect of your care you are able to speak to a member of staff at the time who will then endeavour to put things right straight away.  If this cannot be done or you remain dissatisfied, either the Hospital Director or Clinic Manager would also be happy to speak or meet with you to resolve your concerns.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of your care upon leaving one of our facilities please send your concerns/complaints in writing to the Director or Clinic Manager of the facility where you were a patient.

Your letter will be acknowledged in writing within three working days of receipt and a thorough investigation will be undertaken. You will receive a response within 20 working days or, if the investigation takes longer, we will keep you informed. The Hospital Director/Clinic Manager may in some circumstances arrange an appointment for you to meet with those involved in your care to hear your concerns first hand and to attempt to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

When we respond to your complaint we always aim to adhere to the following principles:

  • Getting it right
    Quickly acknowledging and putting right cases of maladministration or poor service that led to injustice or hardship. Considering all the factors when deciding the remedy with fairness for the complainant and, where appropriate, others who also suffered.
  • Being customer focused
    Apologising and explaining, managing expectations, dealing with people professionally and sensitively and remedies that take into account individual circumstances.
  • Being open and accountable
    Clear about how decisions are made, proper accountability, delegation and keeping clear records.
  • Acting fairly and proportionately
    Fair and proportionate remedies, without bias and discrimination.
  • Putting things right
    Consider all forms of remedy such as apology, explanation, remedial action or financial offer.
  • Seeking continuous improvement
    Using lessons learned to avoid repeating poor service and recording outcomes to improve services.

Having exhausted the process above and if you continue to remain dissatisfied you may write to the Chief Executive at Aspen Healthcare, the Parent Company of our hospitals/clinics, providing details of the areas of the complaint that remain unresolved at:

Chief Executive
Aspen Healthcare Limited
Centurion House
37 Jewry Street
London EC3N 2ER

Self-Pay/Insured Patients

We are a member of the Independent Sector Complaints Advisory Service [ISCAS].  ISCAS operates an Independent External Adjudication process for Self-Pay/Insured patients.  If after receiving the response from our Chief Executive you remain dissatisfied and have exhausted our company’s local complaints procedure, you may wish to contact ISCAS to initiate an Independent External Adjudication.  You will need to write within 6 months of receipt of the letter from the Chief Executive. Contact details are:

The Secretariat of the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service
c/o Independent Healthcare Advisory Service
70 Fleet Street
London EC4Y 1EU

T.  020 7536 6091
E.  jyates@iscas.org.uk
W. www.iscas.org.uk

The External Adjudication Secretariat will then communicate with you to outline the procedure that they will follow in the investigation of your complaint.

You can read and download the ISCAS Code of Practice here.

NHS Patients

If you are an NHS funded patient who has received treatment at an Aspen Hospital/Clinic, the NHS is responsible for the quality of your care and you should either make a complaint to ourselves as outlined above, or to your local Clinical Commissioning Group (in Scotland the local NHS Health Board) who commissioned your care.  We will then work together to resolve your complaint.

If you have exhausted the Hospital/Clinic’s local complaint process and you continue to remain dissatisfied with how your concerns/complaint has been handled, as an NHS patient you are entitled to raise your concerns with the Health Service Ombudsman who can be contacted in the following ways:

T.   03450 154 033
F.   03000 614 000
E.   phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk
W.  www.ombudsman.org.uk

or in writing to:

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

Regulation

The regulatory bodies under which our Hospital/Clinics are registered with are the:

Care Quality Commission, Citygate, Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4PA. Their web address is: www.cqc.org.uk (England and Wales).
Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS). Patients can contact HIS at any point during or after their care if they have a concern or complaint. HIS are not part of the complaints escalation process.

Executive Office Business Manager
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Gyle Square
1 South Gyle Crescent
Edinburgh EH12 9EB

Their web address is www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org