Making a Complaint

If you feel unhappy with the service you have received, we recommend you talk to a member of staff, as this will allow them to deal with the issue and endeavour to resolve your concerns straight away.

If the issue cannot be resolved satisfactorily, we recommend you make a formal complaint as soon as possible after the event. This will allow for the appropriate evidence to be gathered and investigated thoroughly.

Sending a formal complaint for the first time is referred to as a Stage 1 complaint. Complaints should be made in writing and addressed to:

Postal Complaints:

The Centre Manager
Rutherford Diagnostic Centre Somerset
Blackbrook Business Park, Blackbrook Park Avenue, Taunton, TA1 2PX

Email Complaints:

You can send a complaint by email addressed to the Centre Manager and emailed to DiagnosticReferrals@therutherford.com. Your email will be received by the Bookings Team and forwarded directly to the Centre Manager. Where you raise a complaint verbally, in person, with a member of staff, they can offer to write down the details of your complaint and provide you with a copy of the statement to check for accuracy and to sign to confirm that it is a correct reflection of your complaint.

To carry out a full investigation we encourage you to provide the following information:

• A full description of the complaint, including the names of any
  employees involved in the complaint.
• Any correspondence in connection to your complaint.
• Information on whether you tried to resolve your concerns informally.
• How you have been affected by the issue in your complaint.

The Centre Manager will send an acknowledgement to you within two working days of receiving the complaint and will invite you to speak directly to him or her regarding your complaint either by telephone or ideally in person. Where a full investigation is required this will be undertaken, and confirmation of the outcome of that investigation will be sent to you within 20 working days. If, however, the complaint is complex, the investigation may take longer. In this case, you can expect to be kept informed of any delays and the reasons why.

Stage 2

If you have received the results of the Stage 1 investigation and are unhappy with the outcome, you may appeal and write to the General Manager of Rutherford Diagnostics Limited. This is known as a Stage 2 complaint.

To ensure that the General Manager can review your complaint objectively, he or she will not have any involvement in the Stage 1 complaints process, but will look at the complaint afresh when it reaches Stage 2. The General Manager will review the complaint in full and we ask for you to explain in your letter the reasons for your dissatisfaction with the Stage 1 outcome.

All Stage 2 complaints should be addressed to:

Postal Complaints:

The General Manager
Rutherford Diagnostics Limited
Blackbrook Business Park, Blackbrook Park Avenue, Taunton, TA1 2PX

Email Complaints:

You can put your complaint in writing by email and send to our Bookings team at DiagnosticReferrals@therutherford.com.

The General Manager will send you a written acknowledgement within two working days, and will then undertake a full review of the original complaint and an investigation. He or she may also invite you to meet to discuss your complaint.

A full response on the outcome of the investigation will be provided to you within 20 working days. If, however, the investigation is more complex, the outcome may take longer. In this case you will be kept informed of all delays and the reasons.

Stage 3

We will endeavour to address your concerns satisfactorily, but recognise that there may be occasions where you feel that we have not dealt with your complaint fairly. Rutherford Diagnostic Centre Somerset, subscribe to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS). ISCAS is the recognised independent adjudicator of complaints for the private healthcare sector.

They are a not-for-profit limited company, independent from the trade body and hosted within the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR). ISCAS provides the services of independent adjudication as the third stage of a three-stage process.

You can write to ISCAS to ask them to review your complaint within 6 months of receiving a Stage 2 outcome letter from us.

The contact details for ISCAS are:

Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service
70 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1EU
Tel: 020 7536 6091
www.iscas.org.uk

As a provider of healthcare services, we are regulated by Care Quality Commission (CQC) and therefore feedback regarding complaints can be sent to:

Care Quality Commission National Customer Service Centre
Tel: 0300 061 6161
enquiries@cqc.org.uk
www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us