Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

Comments and complaints

The General Medical Council is the independent regulator for doctors in the UK. Our statutory purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine.

We value comments and complaints about the services we provide. Your views are important. They help us to understand what works well and which services or procedures can be improved.

Feedback

If you would like to send comments on any aspect of our work, you can send them, or talk, to our Customer Service Manager:


Neil Jinks
Customer Service Manager
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW

Tel: 0161 923 6200
Fax: 0845 357 0025

Email: customerservicemanager@gmc-uk.org

The Customer Service Manager will acknowledge your comments. We will aim to reply within 10 working days but will let you know if it will take longer.

Complaints

If you want to complain about a doctor, please read the Concerns about doctors section of our website or speak to one of our advisers on 0161 923 6602.

We define a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction with the standard of service we have provided.

We aim for the highest standards of service but recognise that sometimes things go wrong. We therefore consider very seriously all complaints about the standard of service we have provided, for example, complaints about:

  • Significant delays to investigating your complaint about a doctor or to dealing with your application for registration.
  • Not keeping you informed of progress of your complaint about a doctor or application for registration.
  • Not replying to correspondence.
  • Not explaining reasons for our decisions.
  • Providing incorrect or misleading advice.

If your complaint is about a decision where an appeal process is set out in law, we will not treat it as a complaint about our service. We would not want to do anything that might affect the exercise of your statutory rights. Examples of these decisions are:

  • Decisions not to investigate complaints about doctors or not to refer doctors to a public hearing after an investigation. If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint about a doctor, you should talk to the investigation officer.
  • Decisions on applications for registration. If you are unhappy with the outcome of your application for registration, you should talk to the application adviser or consider taking legal advice.
  • Our handling of your request for information under the Data Protection Act or the Freedom of Information Act. If you are unhappy with the way in which we have dealt with your request, please read the Accessing information part of our website or speak to the person who dealt with your request.

How to complain

You should first try to resolve your complaint with the person you have been dealing with.

If you are dissatisfied with that person's response, they will explain next steps.

If your complaint remains unresolved, you can then contact our Customer Service Manager by telephone, fax, e-mail or in writing. Please tell the Customer Service Manager:

  • The names of the people you have been dealing with.
  • Any reference numbers we have given you.
  • Your GMC reference number, if you are a doctor.
  • What you think has gone wrong.
  • Why you are dissatisfied with the handling of your complaint.
  • What you think we should do to put things right.

Our Customer Service Manager will acknowledge your complaint.

We might ask the relevant team to try again to resolve your complaint. If we do, they will aim to reply within 10 working days but will let you know if they can't.

Otherwise, we will ask a member of our senior management team to consider your complaint. We will aim to reply within 10 working days but will let you know if we can't. This is the final stage of our complaints procedure.

If you still disagree

Our Customer Service Manager will acknowledge any further correspondence about your complaint but, unless it raises significant new issues, we will not send further replies.

Our decisions can be the subject of judicial review proceedings. Applications for judicial review have to be made promptly: usually within three months of the decision.

The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence can consider some complaints about healthcare regulatory bodies, including the GMC. Their process for handling complaints about healthcare regulatory bodies explains what types of complaint they can and cannot consider.

Their address is:

11 Strand
London
WC2N 5HR

Telephone: 020 7389 8030
Fax: 020 7389 8040

If you need help

You can comment or complain in writing, by e-mail, by fax or over the telephone.

We are happy to receive comments or complaints through an advocate or representative acting on your behalf. We will ask you to confirm that you are happy for that person to act for you. We will deal with them direct until the investigation into your complaint is completed. You can tell us at any stage if you no longer want the person to act for you.

We are committed to making our website accessible to everyone. Our website is BrowseAloud enabled. You can find out more about BrowseAloud and accessibility by reading our Web accessibility statement.

Information about our complaints procedure can be made available on request in Braille, on audio cassette tape, on disk, in large print and in other languages. 

Please contact our Customer Service Manager if you need information in an alternative language or format. The Customer Service Manager may ask you some questions about your preferred method of communication. This is to ensure that any information we provide is accessible and meets your requirements.

Wherever possible, we will provide the information in the format or language you require during all stages of the complaints process. 

Our promise to you

We aim to provide the highest standard of service and to have a complaints procedure which:

  • Is easily accessible and well publicised.
  • Is simple and easy to understand.
  • Allows us to act quickly, with clear timescales for action.
  • Keeps you informed of progress.
  • Is fair, objective and free from discrimination.
  • Maintains your and our staff's confidentiality.
  • Treats everyone politely and with dignity.
  • Answers all the points and issues and provides appropriate redress.

We recognise that sometimes we do not provide the standard of service that we would like. When things go wrong, we will acknowledge our mistakes, put things right and learn from your experience to improve our services.

We will acknowledge your complaint and answer any concerns as quickly as we can, and within 10 working days, wherever possible. We will let you know if it will take longer.

Your responsibility

In return, we expect you to treat our staff politely and with respect. We do not expect our staff to tolerate abusive, offensive or threatening behaviour.

We will:

  • Tell you when you behaviour is unacceptable.
  • Ask you to change it.
  • Consider restricting your contact with our staff, if the behaviour continues. For example, by asking you to contact us only by correspondence, to contact only a named member of staff, or by restricting telephone calls to specified days and times.
  • Consider ending contact, if you continue to behave in an unacceptable way.
  • In extreme cases, consider reporting matters to the police if your behaviour threatens the safety and welfare of our staff.