In this section...

  1. How we make decisions
  2. Our priorities
  3. Policies and procedures
  4. What we spend and how we spend it
  5. Who we are and what we do
  6. Work for us

Patient Advice and Complaints Team

The Trust is committed to providing a high-quality experience to all who need to use our services.

If you feel something has not gone right, or you are unhappy with any part of your hospital experience, in the first instance it is often best to speak to the person in charge of the clinic or service. They will do their best to resolve any issues or concerns you raise.

If you feel uncomfortable in doing so, or are unable to, we are here to help you. You can find our contact details below.

This is a free service. We will work with you to try to resolve your concerns. If we are unable to do this, you will be able to make a complaint, and we will guide you through this process. We work independently to clinical teams.

It is important to remember that the Patient Advice and Complaints Team may need to access the hospital systems, which may include medical records. They may also liaise with other departments as necessary to help with your enquiry.

If your concern is in relation to someone else, we may need their permission to be able to help you. We will let you know if this is the case.

What we can do

  • If you have a problem with a ward, service, or member of staff, we can talk to them on your behalf to help you find a possible resolution.
  • We can help with general enquiries about our hospitals and community services.
  • We can take details of any feedback you wish to give to us, and feed this back to the relevant area to help improve our services.
  • We can take the details of your complaint.

What we cannot do

  • Appeal or influence decisions regarding the Mental Health Act
  • Halt or intervene with a patients discharge.
  • Provide or change medical records including letters and assessments.
  • Give you detailed medial information, a diagnosis, or provide clinical advice.
  • Change or affect a decision that has been made on a clinical basis.
  • Book or change appointments.
  • Arrange for people to move up a waiting list.
  • Provide any medical care or treatment.

Our promises to you

  • If you leave a message, send an email, or use our enquiry form, we will reply to you by the end of the next working day.
  • We will work with you to resolve your concerns as quickly as possible.
  • If we are unable to resolve your concerns, we will put you in touch with the right people to do so.

Raise a concern or complaint

To raise a concern, select the organisation you wish to raise a concern about from the dropdowns below.

Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

  • Write to us: Patient Advice and Complaints Team, Room 11, Banham House, Bodmin Hospital, Bodmin, PL31 2QT.
  • Email the Patient Advice and Complaints Team.
  • Call 01208 834 620. Our phone line hours have temporarily changed. Lines are open 10am to 3.30pm, Monday to Friday. Outside these hours, please leave a message and we will call you back by the end of the next working day.
  • Complete the form below.
Contact us

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GPs, dentists and pharmacies

You will need to raise your concerns directly with the service. If you are uncomfortable doing this, you can contact NHS Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

We are unable to help you with queries about these services.

What happens when you make a complaint?

We recognise that despite all our best efforts, things do not always go as expected. We would like to support patients, relatives, carers, visitors and colleagues to put things right. If that is not possible to learn from the complaint and use this to improve our services.

Making a complaint will not affect any care or treatment being given to a patient. Complaint details are stored on a separate system, not your medical notes.

The complaints process is overseen by a complaints manager who will work with our team and clinical teams to ensure you receive an appropriate response. We work independently to clinical teams.

Our promises to you if you make a complaint

  • We will respond to your initial enquiry (whether that's by email, telephone, or our contact form) by the end of the next working day. If possible, we will see if we can resolve your complaint at this stage (known as early resolution) as we find this is often best for patients if it is possible.
  • If early resolution is not possible, within 3 working days we will discuss the details of your complaint and agree the points that need to be investigated.
  • We will formally acknowledge your complaint.
  • We will learn from complaints.
  • That no patient or complainant will be treated unfairly because a concern has been raised about their care. No record of a complaint is made on a patient's medical records, they are held on a separate system.

We will aim to resolve your complaint within 60 working days. For more complex complaints this may take longer. At the moment, it is taking us a little longer than this. We are working hard to reduce this timescale and would still like to help you, but be aware it may take us longer than usual to respond.

Advice on making a complaint

Making a complaint can be difficult, and we would like to make it as easy as possible for you. Here are some tips you can follow to help us to look at your complaint as quickly as possible.

  • Make the complaint as soon as possible after the event. It is often easier for anyone involved to remember what happened.
  • Make the complaint within 12 months of the incident, or within 12 months of being aware you have cause to complain. We may not be able to look at your complaint if it is outside this timescale.
  • Provide as much information as possible, for example:
    • names, address, and date of birth
    • name and address of the patient if it is not you
    • hospital number or NHS number if it is known
    • relevant dates and times
    • names of staff and departments involved
  • If you have 2 or more concerns, it can often help to number the points so we can make sure we answer all of the concerns.

Complaints process

1. Acknowledgement

A member of our team will contact you within 3 working days to acknowledge receipt of the complaint. They will discuss with you the concerns you have, the affect this has had, and what outcome you are seeking.

2. Assessment

Our team will then assess the complaint and complete the checks that the law says we have to. For example if we need consent from the patient or if the complaint within the time limits. We will consider if we are able to consider the complaint.

If we are not able to consider your complaint, we will write to you and explain the reasons why.

If we are able to consider the complaint, we will then assign the complaint to the services for investigation and give them the timescales that we will aim to reply by. We will then write to you to let you know we have started our investigation, and let you know when we expect to be able to provide you with a response.

Dependent on the complexity of the complaint, we have 3 different timescales for complaints.

  • Level 1: 30 working days from the date of receipt.
  • Level 2: 40 working days from the date of receipt.
  • Level 3: 60 working days from the date of receipt.

3. Investigation

Your complaint will then be investigated. In doing this, we will look at the following key pieces of information:

  • what you say has happened
  • what should have happened
  • what actually happened

If what should have happened and what actually happened are different, we will investigate the reasons why. We will put steps in place to put this right and stop it from happening again.

You may be contacted by a member of our team or the person carrying out the investigation for more information, or to discuss issues further with you.

4. Checking

To make sure that we deliver the right answer to you first time, we check our complaint responses before they are sent to you. These checks are:

  • the head of the department where the complaint was about
  • the complaints manager
  • a senior member of the governance team
  • the chief executive

5. The response

Once all 4 checks have been completed, and all parties agree the response is accurate and robust, your response will be sent to you.

If you are unhappy with the response

If you are unhappy with the response you receive, you can ask us to look at it again if you have found that there is incorrect information. You will need to let our team know what is incorrect.

You do have the option to refer the case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. They are a free service and make the final decisions on complaints in the NHS which have not been satisfactorily resolved. You are not able to ask them to consider a complaint unless we have had the opportunity to resolve it first.

Complaints we cannot look at

Contracts of employment

If the complaint is about a contract of employment, you will need to follow the organisations internal processes.

Contracts for services, or complaints from another provider

You would need to raise your complaint in line with the contract you hold, or direct with the services.

Complaints outside the time limit

The time limit for bringing a complaint to us is 12 months from the date of the incident, or 12 months from when you became aware of the incident or cause to complain, whichever is sooner.

If you were unable to complain in this time limit, you can ask the complaints manager to consider putting the time limit to one side. Please note, this is a discretionary decision.

Complaints already considered by the Trust

If the subject matter of the complaint has already been considered, and you have had a response, you cannot complain about the same issue again. This includes complaints that were resolved by the end of the next working day to which they were received.

Complaints being investigated by an ombudsman

If your complaint is being investigated or has been investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, or the local government and Health Service Ombudsman, we are not able to consider it.

Independent support for making a complaint

Making a complaint can be difficult for some. If you feel you need support in making a complaint, you are able to ask an advocacy service for support. An advocacy service is a free and confidential service.