Compliments and Complaints

If you've had a good experience, think a member of our staff has gone the extra mile or have a suggestion on how we can improve our services, let us know in one of the following ways:

- Talk to your local service staff

- Send your local service staff a letter or email

- Contact our Patient Advisory Liaison Service  (PALS) on 0118 9605027 or PALS@berkshire.nhs.uk

How to make a complaint

We’re committed to providing excellent care and if you or a loved one have had a bad experience with one of our services, we want to know. This gives us a chance to put things right, learn from the experience and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Making a complaint is quick and easy and can be done in the following ways.

• If you’re happy to, talk to your local service staff so they can try and fix the problem. If you want some support to do this, contact our PALS team, who will be happy to help.
  Phone: 0118 9605027
  Email: BHT@berkshire.nhs.uk

• If you’ve already talked to your local service staff and are still unhappy with the outcome, you can make a formal complaint in writing to our Complaints Office or our Chief Executive, Julian Emms.

  Phone: 01344 415662 (if you leave us a message, we’ll get back to you within two working days)

  Fax: 01344 415627

  Email: BHCT.complaints@berkshire.nhs.uk

• You can get independent support to make a formal complaint by contacting SEAP (Support, Empower, Advocate, Promote).
  Phone: 0330 440 9000

Once we’ve received your complaint, we’ll follow the standard NHS regulations and assign you a senior manager who will deal with your case seriously and as quickly as possible.

We’ll get in touch with you to make sure we have as much information as possible. We’ll also talk to all the staff involved to find out what happened and, if you agree, we’ll contact any other agencies who may have been involved.

Once we’ve finished investigating, our Chief Executive, Julian Emms, will send you a formal response by post.

Unfortunately, we’re unable to investigate complaints if you’re taking legal action against us or seeking financial compensation. We might also not be able to investigate your complaint if it’s about something that happened more than 12 months ago.

Read the full Berkshire Healthcare complaint policy.

If you’re unhappy with our response to your complaint

If you’re not happy with our formal response, or if you have any questions, please let us know.
We’ll look into the way we’ve investigated your complaint or arrange a meeting with you to discuss what we found in detail.
If you’re still unhappy, you can ask for an independent review from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman within 12 months of the date of our formal response.
Phone: 0345 015 4033
Website: www.ombudsman.org.uk
Address: Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London SW1P 4QP

Contacting our complaints office

You can contact our Complains Office between 9.30am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays) in the following ways.

Calls to our PALS team may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes.

• Phone 01344 415662 (if you leave us a message, we’ll get back to you within two working days)
• Fax 01344 415627
• E-mail BHCT.complaints@berkshire.nhs.uk

Sending a formal complaint letter

If you would like to make a formal complaint, please put your concerns in writing to:

Julian Emms
Chief Executive

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
3rd Floor
Fitzwilliam House
Skimped Hill Lane
Bracknell
Berkshire
RG12 1BQ