Complaints, suggestions and feedback

If something about your care has not been right, we would like to know. Telling us gives us information we would not otherwise have, and it is how we improve.

Synthesis Clinic complaints procedure · Version 2.1 · August 2026

1. Our approach

We welcome complaints. Most people who raise a concern do so because they want the service to be better, and that is how we treat it.

Your care will not be affected because you have complained. No member of our team will suggest otherwise, by word or manner.

When we have got something wrong we will say so, explain why, and apologise. An apology from us is not an admission of legal liability. We look for the cause in the way we work rather than for someone to blame, we answer in plain language, and we tell you what we have changed as a result.

Our procedure follows the ISCAS Code of Practice for Complaints Management and the complaint handling principles of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

2. What this procedure covers

A complaint is any concern about our care or our service that needs to be looked into and answered formally. You do not have to use the word complaint, and you do not have to put it in writing. If you tell any member of our team that you are unhappy and we cannot put it right on the spot, we will treat it as a complaint and record it.

This procedure covers all aspects of the care and services we provide, at the clinic, in your home and remotely. It covers the conduct of any of our clinicians in connection with your care, whether they are employed by us or work with us under a contract, including our mobile nursing team.

It applies whether or not something else is happening about the same events, such as a claim or an investigation by a regulator. Telling us what remedy you are looking for, including a refund, will not stop us considering your complaint.

Concerns we deal with in a different way

3. Who can complain

You can complain if you are a patient or a former patient. So can a carer, relative or representative acting with your consent, and anyone else affected by something we have done or failed to do. It makes no difference whether you paid us directly or your care was funded through an insurance scheme.

Complaining on behalf of someone else

If you are complaining for someone else, or if answering your complaint means sharing confidential information with anyone else, we will ask the patient for written consent first. Consent by email is fine and an electronic signature is fine. Where the patient cannot give consent, for example because they lack capacity or have died, we will decide case by case what we can share and with whom, and we will record that decision and our reasons.

Children and young people

A young person can complain in their own right if they understand what they are doing, and we will handle their complaint in exactly the same way as anyone else's. A person with parental responsibility can complain on behalf of a child. If anything in a complaint raises a concern about a child's welfare, we will act on that immediately under our safeguarding procedure, which takes precedence.

Time limits

Please complain within six months of what happened, or within six months of realising there was a problem. We will still accept a complaint later where you have a good reason for the delay, for example if you have been unwell or bereaved, and where it is still possible for us to look into it fairly and properly.

If you want to take a complaint to the next stage, please ask us in writing within six months of the response you received at the stage before.

4. Help to make a complaint

Nobody should be put off complaining, or disadvantaged by the way they choose to do it. Tell us what would help and we will arrange it. We can offer:

• An interpreter, if English is not your first language.
• Letters and documents in large print or in easy read.
• Longer timescales, if illness, treatment or fatigue makes our standard timescales difficult for you.
• Meetings by video or telephone rather than in person.

You do not need to ask. If we can see that something would help, we will offer it.

5. How to complain

Whoever you tell, and however you tell them, your complaint reaches our Practice Manager the same working day.

6. Stage 1: looking into your complaint

Most complaints are resolved at this stage, and we put our effort into getting it right the first time.

What happens first

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing within 3 working days. That acknowledgement tells you who is dealing with it and how to reach them, what we are going to do, that you will have either a full reply or a progress update within 20 working days, and that we aim to finish each stage within three months.

Agreeing what we are looking into

We will invite you to meet a senior member of the team, in person, by telephone or by video, whichever you prefer. The purpose is to understand your concerns properly and to agree between us exactly what we are investigating. We will send you a written summary of that conversation within 5 working days, and we will agree the points with you before we start.

This matters more than it might sound. The points we agree are what any later review or independent adjudication will be based on, so it is worth taking the time to get them right.

How we investigate

We look at the correspondence, your clinical records, the records of our conversations with you, and written statements from everyone involved. Where an independent clinical opinion would help, we will discuss that with you first, obtain it from a clinician outside our clinic, and pay for it ourselves. We will ask your permission before sharing any of your information with them.

Our reply

You will receive one full written reply, by post or email, within 20 working days. If we are still investigating, we will write to you at least every 20 working days to explain why. Each stage is finished within three months unless there is an exceptional reason, which we will explain. We answer any substantive letter or email about a complaint within 5 working days.

Our reply will set out the points we agreed, how we investigated, what we found, and whether we uphold each point. It will tell you what we have learned, what we have done about it, and what we are offering to put things right. It will explain how to ask for a review if you are not satisfied, and confirm that you need to do that in writing within six months.

7. Your account while a complaint is open

8. Putting things right

Depending on what we find, we may offer a full and specific apology from a senior member of the team, take action to put the matter right, tell you what we have changed as a result, or make a payment as a gesture of goodwill, which can include writing off fees you owe us.

All goodwill payments are authorised personally by our Medical and Company Director. Where we offer one and you accept it, we pay it in full and we do not set it against anything on your account unless you ask us to.

We will never attach conditions to a goodwill offer that stop you raising your concerns with a regulator or any other public body. The only condition we may attach is that accepting an offer made in full and final settlement brings the complaints process to a close.

Two things it is fair to tell you at the outset. Under the ISCAS Code an adjudicator cannot order a refund, cannot order us to waive fees and cannot award compensation. And if we offer you a remedy at Stage 1 or Stage 2 and you decide to go on to Stage 3, that offer is withdrawn. If any part of your complaint might give rise to a claim for clinical negligence, you have the right to take independent legal advice, and we will say so in our reply.

9. Stage 2: asking for a review

If you are not satisfied with our Stage 1 reply, you can ask for the complaint to be reviewed. Please ask in writing within six months of that reply.

A review must be carried out by someone senior who was not involved in what you complained about and did not deal with your complaint at Stage 1. We are a small clinic, so who that is depends on what your complaint is about. We will tell you in our Stage 1 reply which route applies to your complaint and how to use it.

What a review involves

We, or the Federation, will ask you to set out in writing what remains unresolved. Your request is acknowledged within 3 working days. You will be invited to a meeting, in person, by telephone or by video, to talk through what is still outstanding and what you are hoping for. You will receive a full written response within 20 working days, or an update every 20 working days if the review is still going on, and the stage is completed within three months unless there is a good reason we will explain to you.

The review considers our Stage 1 reply, the points still unresolved, what we found and what we based it on, your comments on our reply, and how well we handled your complaint in the first place. The written outcome tells you whether each point is upheld, what action we are taking, and what happens next.

If you raise something entirely new when you ask for a review, that is a new complaint and we will normally look into it at Stage 1, so that you do not lose a stage.

10. Stage 3: independent external adjudication

Where your review was carried out by the Independent Doctors Federation and you remain dissatisfied, your complaint can be referred through the Federation to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS) for independent external adjudication by an adjudicator who is independent of both you and us.

The referral must be made in writing within six months of the final Stage 2 response, and is accepted later only in exceptional circumstances. The process costs you nothing. We pay the costs of adjudication.

The adjudicator decides whether to uphold each point of your complaint, can recommend an apology, can recommend changes to the way we work, and can award a goodwill payment of up to £5,000. The adjudicator cannot order a refund and cannot award compensation.

The adjudicator's decision is final, there is no right of appeal, and it is binding on both you and us. Your legal rights are not affected, and you can take legal advice or legal action at any time.

The ISCAS Code of Practice and the ISCAS Patients' Guide are published on the ISCAS website, and we will send you a copy on request.

11. If your complaint cannot yet go to independent adjudication

12. Confidentiality and your records

Everything about your complaint and our investigation is kept confidential and shared only with the people who need it in order to look into it and reply, or where the law requires us to disclose it.

We keep complaint files separately from your clinical records. The fact that you have complained does not appear in your clinical record unless it is clinically relevant to your care. We keep complaint files for 10 years from the date the complaint is resolved, and then destroy them securely.

13. How we learn from complaints

We share what we learn with the team, change how we work where a complaint shows we should, and then check that the change has actually worked. Complaints, outcomes and themes are reviewed every three months at our clinical governance meeting, and we prepare a summary each year of what we received, what the themes were and what we improved.

The Care Quality Commission can ask us at any time for a summary of the complaints we have received and how we responded, and we provide it within 28 days.

14. If contact becomes unacceptable

This is rare, and the threshold is high. Being persistent is never unreasonable in itself: if we have not answered you properly, you are entitled to keep asking. Very occasionally, though, contact becomes abusive, threatening or so frequent that we cannot run the service, and in that situation we may need to limit how contact happens, for example by asking you to deal with one named person.

If that ever happens we will write to you and explain what we are doing, why, for how long, and how to ask us to reconsider. We will still investigate and answer your complaint, and nothing we do will prevent you taking your complaint to the Independent Doctors Federation, ISCAS, the Care Quality Commission, the Information Commissioner's Office or a professional regulator.

15. Other organisations you can contact

Synthesis Clinic is the trading name of Synthesis Clinic Ltd, company number 11457261, registered with the Care Quality Commission under provider identifier 1-7720456969. This page sets out version 2.1 of our complaints procedure, August 2026. We review it every year and whenever the ISCAS Code of Practice changes. A copy is available on request in large print or easy read.