Complaints Procedure

Nottingham Ear Clinic is committed to providing its patients and visitors with treatment and service to the highest standards. We like to know how well we provide our services and it is for this reason we encourage you to complete the Patient Satisfaction Survey after your appointment as this allows both positive and negative feedback. The responses are monitored monthly and are used to improve our services.

However if for any reason you are unhappy you have the right to make a complaint about any aspect of your care, treatment or the service you received.

A complaint can be made by a patient or person affected by the actions or decisions of a Nottingham Ear Clinic Practitioner. A complaint can also be made by someone acting on behalf of the patient or person, with their consent.

You should normally complain within 4 weeks of the event(s) concerned or within 4 weeks of becoming aware that you have something to complain about, providing that it is within 12 months of the event. Nottingham Ear Clinic management have discretion to waive this time limit if there are good reasons why you should not complain earlier.

In the first instance, you can raise your concerns by speaking to a member of staff at the time or after the consultation, by contacting the Practice Manager. The member of staff or Practice Manager may be able to resolve your concerns without the need to make a more formal complaint. 

Alternatively, in some cases, you may feel more comfortable speaking to someone not directly involved in your care.

We aim to resolve complaints quickly and as close to the source of the complaint as possible using the most appropriate means; for example, use of conciliation.

If you do wish to continue with a formal complaint you can do this by writing a letter or email addressed to the practitioner concerned or to:

Nottingham Ear Clinic 

Clinical Governance Team,
200 Derby Road, Stapleford, Nottingham, NG9 7AY

Email: info@nottinghamearclinic.co.uk

Your correspondence will be acknowledged within 3 working days of receipt and then investigated further. You should receive a full response or offer of a meeting with the people involved within 21 working days. You should also be informed if the investigations are going to take longer.

• Find out what happened and what went wrong
• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned
• Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate
• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again

If you remain unsatisfied by our response and attempts to address your complaint or issues raised, you can make a complaint to the Care Quality Commission (https://www.cqc.org.uk).