Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what processes are in place to ensure complaints about the NHS are investigated.

Patients have the right, set out in the NHS Constitution, to make a complaint about any aspect of National Health Service care, treatment or services and to have that complaint properly investigated, dealt with efficiently and to know the outcome of any complaint investigation.

The NHS complaints procedure, including the process for investigating and responding to a complaint is set out in secondary legislation, primarily the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009.

Anyone wishing to make a complaint can do so either to the service provider or to the commissioner. If they are not happy with the outcome of their complaint, they have the right to ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to investigate.