Complaint, concern or compliment

Sharing your views on services – whether it’s a complaint, concern or compliment – helps us to know what we are doing well, learn lessons from mistakes, and prevent them from happening to anyone else.

North Central London Integrated Care Board (NCL ICB) is the commissioner of NHS services in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington. As a commissioner of services, we assess the health and care needs of the population of these five London boroughs, plan the services that we think are needed, and commission (pay for) these services from a range of providers, typically NHS Foundation trusts (who provide hospital and community health services), GP practices, dentists, optometrists, and pharmacists.

Should I complain to the provider or commissioner of an NHS service?

Usually, complaints about the care you have received are best handled by the provider of that care as they have the relevant records and clinical staff to inform their response. However, you are also entitled to complain to the ICB as the commissioner of these services if you prefer.

Complaining to the commissioner may be the right option if you are not comfortable complaining directly to your healthcare provider. In this case, the ICB may seek consent to pass on your complaint to the provider to investigate and respond to your complaint directly; and the provider will be asked to share a copy of the complaint response with the ICB for monitoring purposes.

If you ask the ICB to lead on the handling of your complaint, we will liaise with the healthcare provider/s to obtain their response, which we will ask to be returned to the ICB. We will then undertake to ensure that the response meets our quality standards, and where applicable, we may seek commissioner review or a clinical review to ensure we are satisfied with the content of the response. Reviewers do not investigate complaints but provide a specialist independent view on the provider’s response, and a summary of any advice obtained will be included in the ICB’s covering letter enclosing the provider’s response that is then issued to you.

Please note, if you have already complained to your healthcare provider, the commissioner will not be able to re-investigate the same concerns. 

If you remain unhappy following a response to your complaint, you should contact either your healthcare provider or the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (PHSO), who can be contacted via Making a complaint | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)

Circumstances where a complaint may not be accepted

We do not accept complaints from healthcare professionals relating to their NHS contracts or other NHS services they have concerns about. Such concerns should be directed to our Enquiries team on: nclicb.enquiries@nhs.net – if a healthcare professional is raising a complaint on behalf of a patient, then we will be able to proceed under the complaints process with evidence of the patient’s consent for the healthcare professional to be their advocate.

The NHS Complaints Process cannot consider complaints relating to the accuracy or content of clinical records, or of concerns with Freedom of Information or Subject Access Requests. Such matters need to be raised directly with the Data Controller who has created and stores these records, such as hospital, GP or Dentist, in the first instance. If you are dissatisfied with the outcome from concerns raised with the Data Controller, the Information Commissioner’s Office can be contacted via www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Under the NHS Complaints Process, complaints should be raised within 12 months of the issue arising or coming to your attention. In exceptional circumstances, this timescale can be waived. If you are raising a complaint about historic issues that occurred more than a year ago, please explain why you have not been able to raise your complaint sooner and provide any mitigating circumstances for us to consider.

If you are raising a complaint on behalf of another person, we will require their consent or confirmation as to the reason why a person cannot consent (such as being a child, being deceased, or lacking capacity). The ICB’s complaints team is unable to approach providers, or access any clinical information, or share confidential information with complainants, in the absence of consent or authority to proceed relating to the person about whose care the complaint relates.

If your complaint is raising concerns about Continuing Healthcare (CHC), and is eligible for the CHC Appeals process, we will log and close your complaint until the Appeal has concluded, at which time you can raise any outstanding issues with us. This may apply to other circumstances, where there is an Appeals process available to you which should be utilised, before proceeding with a complaint.

The NHS Complaints Process cannot be used to expedite care or treatment, such as moving you up a waiting list. The ICB is not a clinical service, and we cannot arrange referrals for patients. Please contact your primary care provider (eg. GP) if you are concerned that your symptoms require a referral to be made or updated to reflect your current health needs.

Looking for a GP or Dentist?

For help finding your nearest GP, dentist, pharmacist or optician, you can use the online search on the NHS UK website or call 0300 311 22 33.

North Central London Integrated Care Board

If you have a complaint relating to the way an NHS service has been commissioned, or you have been directly affected by a commissioning decision made by us, or you don’t feel comfortable contacting the provider of the service, please get in touch with the North Central London Integrated Care Board (NCL ICB) Complaints Team.

• Email nclicb.complaints@nhs.net
• Telephone 020 4515 1448 (Please leave a message requesting a call back. We aim to call you back within three working days)
• By post: NHS North Central London ICB, Complaints Team, 2nd Floor, Laycock PDC, Laycock Street, London, N1 1TH