"My complaint has fallen on deaf ears"

Sadly I found myself in the position where I had to make a complaint regarding the lack of service, unprofessional behaviours and recurrent failures of duty of care from one of the doctors at my GP surgery. I utilised the formal complaints process directly with the practice and with NHS Lanarkshire. My complaint has fallen on deaf ears.

As a practice I've found them to be morally and ethically questionable and in my experience, they've shown no interest in providing any kind of patient-centred care. When challenged they attempted to cover their own failings. Ironically, staff members were left to investigate complaints that involve them, making it impossible to receive a response without bias. They literally have the power of life and death. They name-dropped consultants in an attempt to gather support, but it transpires that the consultants actually disagree with their claims.

When complaining, I have frequently found their opening line to be that this patient is bearing a grudge, seemingly in an attempt to sway the opinion of others and detract from the inadequacies of care.

The responsible individual at NHS Lanarkshire didn’t respond to me in the first instance, and referred to me as a she in internal communications which I can only assume were emailed to me in error. I only actually received a response when I insisted on one. Not the patient-centred care expected from those outlined in NHSL's own core values.

Unfortunately my experience was of a draconian culture of closing ranks regarding failures within the service.