Patient Experience Team

The Patient Experience Team is on hand to listen to your feedback and help you with any concerns you might have over the quality of your care.

We are always looking to improve our services for patients and visitors, and welcome compliments, comments, concerns and complaints.

We are responsible for providing an understanding and sensitive first response to your feedback and for passing concerns and complaints to relevant staff for investigation.

We will work with you to clarify the precise nature of your concerns and identify what you would like to achieve by making contact with us. We will then explore the various available options to help you resolve your problem. Finding the most suitable way forward, in agreement with you, is a very important first step in dealing with your concerns. If the issues you have raised involve a number of organisations, we will seek your consent to share your concerns and arrange a co-ordinated response.

Contact us

To protect patients and support our frontline staff if you have concerns about the care we provide please only contact us by:

Email: [email protected]

Or via our online form.

Call: 01423 555499

Meet the team

Jo Twigger – Patient Experience Manager

Julie O’Brien – Patient Experience Team Co-Ordinator

Wendy Bennett – Patient Experience Officer

Tom Whitaker – Patient Experience Officer

Cara Philpott – Patient Engagement & Involvement Officer

Compliments, comments, concerns and complaints

Compliments are a helpful way of letting staff know when they are getting it right. They can be given directly to an individual, team or department, or you can share them with the Patient Experience Team via the telephone, email, letter or our online form.

Comments are really valuable to us because they help us to improve or change the way we do things. Please do get in touch if you have any comments about the way we run our services – we’re always keen to get input from our patients and their families.

If you have a concern about your care, treatment or experience with us, please raise it with the nursing staff or medical team who are involved in your care in the first instance. Often they are best placed to provide you with an explanation about why something has or has not been done. The majority of concerns can be resolved quickly and easily this way.

If your concern or complaint cannot be answered by the ward or department, or if you’re dissatisfied with the response, please contact the Patient Experience Team.

Sometimes a more formal investigation or independent medical review may be the best way forward. The Patient Experience Team can discuss this with you and agree how to progress with an agreed timescale for a response.

Alternatively, you may prefer to contact the Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service which provides help for people who need assistance to complain about NHS services. This service is independent from the NHS, confidential and free.

If you feel uncomfortable about making a complaint, you can nominate a friend or member of your family to act on your behalf. Please note that we will need your written consent before we can share information with them.

What happens next?

Once the Trust has had the opportunity to investigate your concerns and provide a response to your complaint, we will check that you are happy with our response and the way we have dealt with this. We are usually able to resolve your concerns. If you remain unsatisfied with your complaint response, and it is felt that there is nothing further we can address at a local level, you can contact the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman and ask them to review your concerns.

Please note, the PHSO will only be able to look into your concerns once a local investigation has been completed. They will not be able open their investigation if you have not yet made a complaint to the Trust first, or your complaint investigation is still in progress.

If your complaint is regarding services such as School Nurses or Health Visitors you could contact the Local Government Ombudsman.

Friends and Family Test

The Friends and Family Test is an anonymous, national NHS survey, that gives patients, carers, families, children and young people the opportunity to leave feedback about their care and treatment in any NHS setting. It provides a valuable insight into how people feel about our services and is integral to our desire to ensure continuous learning and improvement from patient experience, based on real-time feedback.

There are multiple ways that you can participate in the Friends and Family Test here at HDFT. There will be suggestion slips in the department you are visiting, posters around our sites displaying a QR (Quick Read) code that will take you straight to our online survey when scanned on your smart phone or device camera, or you may be contacted by our automated telephone system to leave feedback.

We also have an online survey, available in both standard and easy read formats. You can click the links below to go straight there and give us your thoughts!

Friends and Family Test (hdft.nhs.uk)  – Standard

Friends and Family Test (hdft.nhs.uk) – Easy Read

Thank you for taking the time to leave us your feedback.

The HARCVS Directory – Where To Turn

You may wish to contact local voluntary and community groups who may be able to support you. Harrogate and Ripon Centres for Voluntary Service (HARCVS) has put together a comprehensive directory for Harrogate, Ripon and the surrounding areas. Click here to access it.

Patient leaflets

Useful resources