Healthcare complaints process
It’s the time of year when winter bugs mean we are all more likely to have need of healthcare services. Unfortunately, access to healthcare services in prison is still one of the major concerns that people raise through our advice service—a point that we made to the Health and Social Care committee last year during their inquiry into Prison health.
Some difficulties experienced in prison in relation to healthcare are not necessarily the responsibility of the healthcare service itself. Over the past few years restricted regimes in some prisons, caused in part by low staffing, have resulted in limited access to appointments, difficulties getting daily medication, and cancellation of important external appointments. If you are considering making a complaint about the healthcare service you have received in prison, it is worth trying to work out whether the problem is about the way the prison provided access to the service or whether it is about the healthcare service itself.
If you do need to make a complaint about the healthcare service itself, you should be aware that this is a separate process from the internal complaints process for the prison. You should speak to the healthcare team in the prison to get information about their own complaints process in the first instance.
If you are not happy with the response from the initial complaint to the healthcare provider you can then write to NHS England. Their contacts details are:
NHS England
PO Box 16738
Redditch
B97 9PT
Telephone: 0300 3112 233
You will need to give your name, your contact address, the name of the service you want to complain about, a clear description of what you want to complain about and when it happened, and send any relevant documents you have.
NHS England also advises that they will usually need consent to share the complaint with the service in order to investigate it and suggest that you include the following line in order to speed up the process:
“I give permission for my complaint to be shared with (insert name of GP / dental surgery etc.) in order for NHS England to carry out an investigation.”
If you are not happy with the response by NHS England you can then ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to look at your complaint. You can write to the ombudsman at:
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
Or telephone: 0345 015 4033, 8.30am-5.30pm, Monday to Friday
If you need any help with making a complaint about health, you can also ask an organisation called NHS Complaints Advocacy for advice. You can contact their helpline on 0300 330 5454. Please be aware that the above steps refer to complaints raised about healthcare services in prisons in England. In other areas we advise speaking to staff for information about the escalation process or contacting our advice and information service for contact details of relevant bodies.
Advice and information service
If you know of someone in prison in need of advice and information find out how you can put them in touch with our service.
