Patient Feedback

St. James’s Hospital welcomes all feedback provided by patients, their family and carers, staff and all service users. The Hospital is committed to listening, responding to and learning from people’s experiences to improve the services the Hospital provides. Feedback includes:

• Complaints 
• Concerns 
• Comments 
• Compliments

When visiting restrictions are in place, any person who wishes to give feedback or make a complaint may to do so by contacting the Patient Experience Office team by telephone, email or letter, using the contact information below. Persons may also bring their concern or complaint to the nurse in charge of a ward or a department manager.

Patients and relatives are asked not to come in person to the Patient Experience Office.

Contact Details:
The Complaints Officer
The Patient Experience Office
Quality and Safety Improvement
St James’s Hospital
James’s Street
Dublin 8

Telephone: (01) 410 3361 or (01) 428 4248

Email: patientfeedback@stjames.ie

Please be aware that it may not be possible for staff to respond to feedback as quickly as they would wish to because they may be busy dealing with the problem that caused visiting to be restricted.

 

Please provide the following information as relevant:

• Your name and address.
• The postal address that should be used for correspondence with you.
• Your telephone contact number. 
• A summary of the complaint indicating the key issues, the circumstances i.e. where, when and how, the persons involved and your expected outcome.

• Inform (by letter) the person who provided the feedback that their feedback has been received.
• The Patient Experience Office aims to acknowledge all feedback within 5 working days of receipt. 
• All Complaints will be reviewed and managed in accordance with the Hospital’s Complaints Policy. 
• The Patient Experience Office team will try to resolve any issues of complaint or concern as quickly as possible. If the issue can be resolved quickly this will be done and the office will inform the person who raised the complaint as soon as possible. 
• Where a complaint requires a formal review, the Patient Experience Office team will try to provide a written response within 30 working days, where possible, but will inform the person who made the complaint if more time is needed to complete the review. 
• The Hospital may offer persons who have made a complaint, a meeting with the staff involved, to discuss the issues raised. Meetings will be arranged for a time when visiting restrictions to the Hospital are not in place.

If you are making a complaint on behalf of a patient, the Patient Experience Office team will need to confirm that the patient has given their consent for information about them to be shared with you.

All information related to complaints is confidential. Records related to Complaints are stored on a secure information system. Complaint records are not included in a patient’s healthcare record.

In order to protect the patient’s right to confidentiality and privacy, the Patient Experience Office primarily communicates directly with the patient or their advocate using letters sent by mail. Where a person informs the office that they require us to use alternative methods e.g. by telephone, we will do so. Formal review responses are issued by mailed letter, not by email.

The office does not share information with the patients or their advocates if using emails that belong to an organisation or business.

If you need help making a complaint, the Patient Experience Office can give you information about contacting independent advocacy services.

The Hospital’s policy for managing complaints is based on Part 9 of the Health Act 2004 that excludes some matters from the complaints process. The Patient Experience Office team will inform complainants if any issues they raised cannot be formally reviewed through the complaints procedure and will advise them on options that may be available to them to resolve their concerns.

Complaints Policy

If a person is dissatisfied with how the Hospital has responded to their complaint they may request an Internal Review of the management of their complaint. This should be requested within 30 days of receiving the Hospital’s response. A person making a complaint who is dissatisfied with how it is managed or the response they receive may request an independent external review by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Contact details:
The Office of the Ombudsman
6 Earlsfort Terrace,
Dublin 2,
D02 W773.

Phone: (01) 639 5600.

Further details and online complaint form: https://www.ombudsman.ie

or contact complaints@ombudsman.ie

Or, for children:
Ombudsman’s Office for Children Millennium House,
52-56 Great Strand Street
Dublin 1.
DO1 F5P8

Further details: http://www.oco.ie