Complaints and Compliments

NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board is committed to responding to patient needs and encouraging a culture that seeks and uses people’s experiences of care to improve the commissioning of services. We welcome your suggestions and feedback about both the services we commission and NHS Frimley provided services. We want to resolve any problems you may experience to help make local healthcare services more effective.

Patient Advice and Complaints Team (PACT)
You can ask for advice, information or talk to us about a concern or complaint. The PACT will work with you to try to resolve a difficulty or problem. We can discuss with you the best ways to resolve your concerns or problems and will agree with you what action to take for your individual circumstances. We can also signpost to other sources of help if needed. Your personal details remain confidential, unless you provide consent for us to share them. Information taken by the PACT is also used anonymously to help improve services.

If you have received particularly good service from any health service provider or you have any comments or suggestions to make, please let us know. This information will help us to keep improving our services.

For enquiries, compliments, concerns, complaints or general feedback you can contact the PACT by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone 0300 561 0250

How to make a formal complaint about health services
Many complaints can be resolved quickly by discussing them directly with the manager concerned or the provider of the service. However, if you do want to make a formal complaint, let us know as soon as possible, as there is a time limit of 12 months from the date of the matter which is the subject of the complaint, although this can be waived depending on the circumstances.

Details about our complaints process and a copy of our policy can be found here.

Complaints about primary care services (GP, dental services, pharmacies, opticians)
Complaints or concerns about primary care services e.g. your GP, dentist, pharmacy or optician, are handled either by the Practice Manager or by NHS England who can be contacted by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by telephone on 0300 311 2233.

Complaints about care provided in hospital
Complaints regarding hospital care can be investigated and responded to by either NHS Frimley or the service provider who provided the care. Under The Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009, complainants have a right to choose where to send their complaint. The Regulations require us to provide information to enable patients to make an informed choice about where to direct their complaint.

It is important to understand that NHS Frimley does not have access to patients; GP or hospital medical records and we not directly employ hospital staff. This means that whichever option you choose, the service provider will conduct the investigation. In the event NHS Frimley is asked to lead on a complaint, the service provider will feed back their investigation findings to NHS Frimley who will conduct a commissioning review before issuing a formal response. If you direct your complaint to NHS Frimley it will inevitably take longer to obtain a response but some people are happy to wait if this means there is commissioning oversight. However, in circumstances where time is critical or the complaint involves complex clinical matters, it is more expedient to send your complaint directly to the service provider.

To help you we have listed the contact details for our main service providers below:

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Web: Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) :: Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (sabp.nhs.uk)