Complaint handling
16. Mr E complains that despite issuing several letters and phone calls, the Practice only issued one response to the concerns raised, and this response took six months to provide. He also complains that the Practice did not follow its own complaints procedure whilst handling the complaint.
17. The Practice’s Complaints Policy is based on the ‘spirit’ of our Principles of Good Administration. It sets out that complaints should be dealt with efficiently, and that complainants are treated with respect and courtesy.
18. In terms of the process for handling complaints, the Policy sets out a ‘receive, acknowledge, investigate, and respond’ process. It clarifies that once it receives a complaint, it should acknowledge this within three working days. The Practice must then investigate the complaint ‘speedily and efficiently’ whilst keeping the complainant informed ‘as far as reasonably practicable’ of any progress. Finally, it should provide a response that outlines its conclusions, any steps that the Practice may need to take as a result, and the complainant’s right to escalate the complaint to us.
19. Importantly, the Policy also sets out that if a complainant contacts the Practice after receiving the response then ‘every effort should be made to answer these enquiries at local resolution’. It explains that this could be through a further response, or even by offering a meeting with all involved parties.
20. The Practice was unable to provide us with copies of its correspondence with Mr E and his solicitors between January 2018 and September 2019. It explained that Mr E had left the Practice shortly after the events of January 2018 and the Practice had changed managers during this time. As a result, it no longer held records of contact either to or from Mr E.
21. Fortunately, Mr E’s solicitors have provided copies of as much correspondence as possible during this period.
22. Whilst this has allowed us to robustly consider the written correspondence between Mr E’s solicitors and the Practice, we have nothing in the way of call logs between the two. As Mr E’s solicitors were not able to provide specifics on when these calls occurred, there is insufficient evidence for us to consider what phone calls may have happened, even on the balance of probability.
23. Instead, our investigation focused solely on the written correspondence between his solicitors and the Practice.
24. We found that the Practice did not follow its own policy. The Policy says the Practice should acknowledge complaints within three working days. This means that when Mr E’s solicitors initially complained on 22 January 2018, it should have acknowledged this by 25 January. The Practice had another chance to issue an acknowledgement when Mr E’s solicitors followed up the complaint on 31 January. The Practice should have acknowledged this by 5 February.
25. Having reviewed the correspondence, there is no evidence the Practice acknowledged the complaint at all before its response in June. This was not in line with the Policy. Without any acknowledgement or update, neither Mr E nor his solicitors were aware the Practice was investigating the complaint.
26. Moving beyond the June 2018 letter, Mr E’s solicitors contacted the Practice a further four times in writing. The only response they received was a one-line letter in September 2018 that acknowledged receipt of this contact but provided no further information. There was no further contact beyond this point until Mr E complained to us.
27. Again, this does not meet the process set out in its own policy. The Policy explicitly states that where further contact occurs the Practice should take ‘every effort’ to resolve it at local resolution.
28. From what we have seen, the Practice made no attempts to resolve Mr E’s further enquiries. Indeed, it was not until we contacted the Practice in July 2019 that it finally issued a further response in September. This meant there were 15 months between the Practice’s initial response and its final response.
29. Overall, the Practice’s complaint handling fell so far short of its own policy that we consider this amounted to a failing.
Impact on Mr E
30. Altogether, the Practice left Mr E and his solicitors without acknowledgement or a response for five months between January and June 2018. It then took a further 15 months for it to respond to the follow-up complaint.
31. During this time, Mr E’s solicitors were in contact with the Practice to try and seek clarity on the situation. However, the Practice never offered any.
32. We are satisfied that the Practice’s complaint handling did result in the frustration and distress Mr E has highlighted. Mr E had concerns about his treatment and having to wait as long as he did for a response to this would certainly have been frustrating and distressing.
33. Mr E also states that these events had a deteriorating impact on his physical and mental health. However, he has not provided any evidence to support this.
34. We therefore have no further information regarding Mr E’s health, and whether it deteriorated. Based on this, we do not have enough information to say, even on the balance of probabilities, whether the Practice’s handling of his complaint caused a deterioration of his physical or mental health.
35. We appreciate from conversations with the Practice that it has been under new management for some time now, and those involved in the handling of Mr E’s complaint are no longer there. However, that does not change the fact that the Practice did not handle Mr E’s complaints as it should have done.
36. We therefore recommend the Practice take action to put things right.