"Patient Relations Department"

Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback on our services at the Patient Relations Department, we appreciate all feedback to help us continually improve and monitor the services our patients experience. May we offer our unreserved apologies for the delays in responding to your initial complaint which was submitted in July 2015. At the point of receipt the Patient Relations Officers speak personally to complainants and agree a deadline for response, which can vary dependent upon the complexity of each case. Every effort is made by the Trust to respond within this timescale and we are successful in doing so in the vast majority of cases, however we acknowledge that we have not achieved that on this occasion.

Without the specific details of your complaint it is difficult to offer a detailed explanation for this delay. We will always endeavour to respond fully to each complaint and in order to do this a robust investigation is necessary. There can be occasions where this investigation process can become more lengthy than initially anticipated, which can make the original deadline unrealistic, especially when we are reliant on other organisations outside this Trust to provide information. However, when this occurs the complainant should be contacted, an explanation for the delay given and a new deadline agreed. We apologise if this did not occur with your complaint.

We would be happy to discuss your complaint with you personally and answer any further questions you may have if you would like to contact the Head of Patient Experience, Andrew Pike on 0191 213 7758.