Our commitment to you

• We will listen carefully
• We will take your complaint very seriously and treat the issues confidentially and sensitively
• Provide you with a full explanation
• Do all we can to make amends
• Your complaint will be stored separately from the medical notes, so it will not in any way affect ongoing or future care or treatment
• LPT values your views and we are committed to learning from all complaints we receive. To ensure we learn and improve the service we provide, we share anonymised complaints in a range of forums.

The Trust fully embraces the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's principles of good complaint handling and my expectations.

What we cannot do

The complaints procedure cannot look at:

• Disciplinary issues for example, if a staff member should be sacked
• 'Strike off' a health professional or suspend their registration
• Look at any complaints about care or treatment provided privately unless it was paid for by the NHS
• Issues that have already been investigated as part of the complaints procedure or by the Ombudsman.

When we receive your complaint

On receipt of your complaint, we will undertake initial checks to ensure:

• That we have all the relevant details needed to register the complaint
• That relevant consent is in place to investigate and share information with you or another organisation
• That the complaint can be investigated as part of the NHS Complaints Regulations.

If we have all the appropriate information we will acknowledge your complaint within three working days of receipt, which will include advice on when we will respond to your complaint.

Your complaint will be shared with the relevant directorate and an investigator will be allocated. The investigator will contact you to:

• Introduce themselves and provide their contact details should you need to speak with them at any point during the investigation
• Discuss your concerns further and obtain any other relevant details
• See if any special requirements are needed to support you
• Advise how they will investigate your complaint and the information they will need to obtain or access
• Understand how you would like us to provide our findings
• Understand the outcome you would like to achieve.

The Investigation

During the investigation:

• A thorough investigation will be undertaken
• Liaise with staff involved in the care (if appropriate)
• If we require additional time, contact you to agree a new date
• If we are delayed in our response, we will contact you to make you aware and provide the reason for the delay. We will then contact you at regular intervals to keep you updated.

Our Response

When our investigation is complete we will:

• provide our findings in a method that best suits you. This can be either by telephone, through a meeting or a written response
• If by telephone or through a meeting, we will provide a summary of the conversation and any actions or learning agreed.

In our response to you we will:

• Be open and honest
• Ensure all the issues are provided with a full explanation
• Offer an apology for you experience and when things don't go right
• Advise how we propose to learn and what steps have been taken to put things right.

What to do if you are unhappy with our response

If you have further questions or simply want a further explanation of our response, please come back to us with four weeks of receipt and we will be pleased to provide clarification or arrange for you to speak or meet with staff.

If you are dissatisfied with the response, please write to the Chief Executive or Complaints Manager detailing the aspects of your complaint that you do not feel our response has addressed, we can then reopen your complaint.

You can also approach the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to undertake a independent review. To do this you will need to contact the PHSO and this must be within 12 months of our response. You can contact the PHSO via their website: www.ombudsman.org.uk/make-a-complaint or calling 0345 015 4033.