Our patient experiences team is your first
point of contact if you have any comments, questions, feedback or
concerns about the service or treatment you have received from us.
You should also contact this team if you want to make a complaint.
The team can also deal with all general enquiries about our
policies and procedures and how we work.
Unfortunately, due to an increase in demand to
the London Ambulance Service the patient experiences team has
received an increase in enquiries this month, and although we
aim to respond as soon as we can, this may take longer than
usual.
If your enquiry is of an urgent nature, please
telephone the patient experiences office on
020 3069 0240 - Monday to Friday 09:30 – 16:30..
Please accept our sincere apologies for the
delay that you may experience in the response to your enquiry.
Find out more about our patient experiences
department and what they do.
When to contact us
Contact us if you want to:
- ask about the service you received from
us;
- make comments and suggestions about your
experience with us, which will help us to improve the services we
provide;
- find out about our policies and
practices;
- be referred to advocacy services which can
support you;
- obtain information about any aspect of our
work;
- obtain copies of the records we hold about
you;
- be put in touch with other health and social
care providers and organisations;
- get access to bilingual health advocates and
other support services you or your family might need to help you
liaise with us. For example, interpreters or signers; or
- complain about the service you received from
us.
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Our contact details
Patient Experiences
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
St Andrews House
St Andrews Way
London E3 3PA
Tel: 020 3069 0240
Fax: 020 3069 0239
Email: ped@londonambulance.nhs.uk
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How we will manage your enquiry
When we receive your enquiry we will firstly
decide on the priority it needs to be given. We aim to respond
to most enquiries within 25 working days. However, if the
issue is complex, we will aim to come back to you within 35 working
days, and within 40 working days if it is considered particularly
complicated. These timescales enable us to provide you with as
thorough a response as possible, but are subject to change as the
case develops and new issues may emerge.
We have changed the way we deal with
complaints. Our new procedure, which can be
found on another page on our site, enables us to
quickly identify the most serious issues, such as those
involving abuse or unsafe practice, and manage them
appropriately.
In some cases we will deal with incidents under our serious
untoward incidents policy, which can be found on our incident
reporting page.
Where the care provided to you involved
different health and social care providers, we will liaise with
those providers to ensure that, wherever possible, you will receive
a single response to your complaint. Where this is not possible, we
will ask those other agencies to respond to those elements of your
complaint that concern them.
If you are not happy with our response to your complaint, you
have a right to contact the Health Service Ombudsman to
ask for an investigation of your complaint.
Our Head of Patient Experiences will correspond with you on
behalf of the Chief Executive. You can be assured that both he and
senior managers are made aware of the most serious issues and any
emerging themes from complaints.
We will adhere to the principles of
good administration, complaints handling and remedy set
out by the Health Service Ombudsman.
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What we will do to resolve your
enquiry
When we receive an enquiry, complaint or a
report about an incident we will do the following.
- Examine and evaluate our records relating to
the incident. For example, the call logs (records of the 999 call),
the tape recordings of the 999 call, and the patient report form
(the record of the assessment and treatment provided).
- Meet with you or whoever has made the
enquiry, where appropriate.
- Examine what demand we faced at the time of
the incident and what staff and vehicles we had available.
- Obtain an account of events from the staff
involved.
- Obtain a quality assurance evaluation of the
way in which the 999 call was managed.
- Obtain clinical advice about the care
provided.
- Offer a comprehensive explanation of how the
incident was managed.
- Explain what action we are going to take, if
any.
Where appropriate, we will take the following
action.
- Involve relevant senior managers and our
medical directorate at an early stage. We may also obtain
independent clinical advice.
- Have face-to-face meetings at an early stage,
where requested or appropriate. We will always consider a
face-to-face meeting if someone has died; when a serious case is
identified; and when the person concerned requests one.
- Arrange independent mediation where
appropriate.
- Ask people independent of our
organisation to carry out an inquiry, especially if we do not have
the expertise ourselves.
- Continue to build on the strong relationship
we have with the Independent
Complaints Advocacy Service. We also welcome the involvement of
specialist advocacy services.
- Liaise with other health and social care providers where they
may have been involved in the matter.
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Our promise to you
When we receive an enquiry, you can expect
us to do the following.
- Contact you in
person within 24 hours—this is based on our patients’ experiences
team working office hours, Monday to Friday.
- Help you to find
the best way of resolving your problem or getting an answer to your
question.
- Deal with your
enquiry in confidence.
- See you at a time
and place that suits you.
- Keep you updated
on the progress of your enquiry and any action we intend to
take.
- Use information
from your enquiry to improve our services.
- Ask for your
feedback and use this so that we can improve our
services.
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What we will do if we get it wrong
Although we aim to provide a high quality
service, there are times when we get it wrong. When that happens we
will do the following.
- Offer you an apology.
- Review the care we provided or the way we
managed the incident with a senior manager, training officer or
someone similar, and reflect on what happened in a way that helps
us to learn from the experience.
- Reimburse you where financial loss has been
incurred.
- Use your experience to improve our policies
and practice.
- Where appropriate, create a specific care
plan, with the involvement and agreement of the patient
involved.
- Explain what we have done to address the
issues raised and prevent them happening again.
- Report back to you on the action we have
taken.
- Work closely with any other agency involved
so that we can offer a ‘joined-up’ approach.
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