Patients and visitors : Make a complaint

If you have had a bad experience with one of our services, we want to know so we can make sure it doesn't happen again.

Our Complaints Service manages formal complaints about care and services provided by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

We are separate from the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), which supports patients and families with general enquiries and informal concerns.

We aim to respond to all formal complaints within 25 working days, following a careful and fair review process.

We might not be able to investigate your complaint if it’s about something that happened more than 12 months ago.

We’re unable to investigate complaints if you’re taking legal action against us or seeking financial compensation. You should instead contact an advocacy group.

We can help with:

• formal complaints raised by patients or their family or carers about care, treatment, or services received from Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• complaints raised by Members of Parliament (MPs) on behalf of their constituents
• informal complaints sent to PALS that are beyond their scope or require a formal investigation
• concerns involving multiple services within the trust that require coordinated responses

We cannot help with:

• general enquiries or requests for information (these are handled by PALS)
• immediate concerns that can be resolved quickly and informally by talking to service staff or PALS
• complaints about services not provided by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (we will help redirect these appropriately).
• complaints that are not related to patient care, treatment, or services (for example, a complaint about parking or public transport availability) 
  
  

We’ll contact you to confirm your request and your details. If you’re happy for us to do so, we’ll talk to the staff or agencies who may be involved.

We’ll follow the standard NHS regulations and assign a senior manager to your request.

Once we’ve finished investigating, our Chief Executive, Julian Emms, will send you a formal response by post.

Send a formal complaint letter

If you would like to make a formal complaint, please put your concerns in writing to:

Julian Emms
Chief Executive
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
London House
London Road
Bracknell
RG12 2UT

If you remain dissatisfied after we believe we have done all we can to respond to your complaint, you can escalate your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). They provide an independent review of NHS complaints.

Write to:

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

• Visit the PHSO website for more information