How you make a complaint about primary care services is changing
Primary care services are GPs, dentists, opticians or pharmacy services.
There are two ways you can make a complaint:
- You can complain to the healthcare provider: this is the organisation where you received the NHS service, for example a GP surgery or dental surgery.
- You can complain to the commissioner of the service: this is the organisation that paid for the service or care you received.
After 1 July 2023 if you want to make a complaint about primary care services to the commissioner you will now contact Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) instead of NHS England.
Details of how to do this can be found at the following website, under the ‘Local area feedback and complaints’ section:
If you want to make a complaint directly to the provider of the primary care service, you still can – that does not change on the 1 July 2023.
NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre will still deal with general enquiries from patients, such as ‘how do I get a GP or Dentist’. For such general enquiries, patients can still call 0300 311 22 33.
Members of the public with ongoing complaints received on/after 1 July 2022 will receive a letter from NHS England informing them that the ICB is now handling their complaint with confirmation of their case handler.
Members of the public with any ongoing complaints received before 1 July 2022 will receive a letter from NHS England informing them that their complaint is being retained by NHS England with confirmation of their case handler.
If you have any queries, please contact 0113 825 4781 until 30 June 2023, and 0161 357 1599 from 3 July 2023 onwards.
If you require assistance making an NHS complaint, you can contact your local advocacy service. Healthwatch Tameside provide this service in Tameside. Information can be found at www.healthwatchtameside.co.uk/help-making-complaint or you can ring 0161 667 2526, and leave a message. We will call you back.
