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Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
When you make a complaint about NHS services, you have a right to have your concerns listened to and properly investigated as quickly as possible and to know the outcome.
These are some of your rights, as a patient, that feature in the NHS Constitution published in January 2009.
This factsheet explains the new approach, introduced in April 2009, to complaining about NHS services‚ including situations where services from both the NHS and social services are involved.
The new approach aims to be:
The first stage of the process involves seeking resolution by investigating your complaint at a local level. If you remain dissatisfied, the second stage involves taking your complaint to the relevant Ombudsman.
The role of the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) in addressing, at an early stage, concerns you may have about services or care you receive is described. The support available from your local Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS) when making a formal complaint is also explained.
This factsheet describes the situation in England. Different rules apply for making a complaint in Northern Ireland‚ Scotland and Wales. Readers in these nations should contact their respective AgeUK organisation for information specific to where they live.
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Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
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