Privately funded healthcare
By law the Ombudsman cannot look into complaints about healthcare funded privately and not by the NHS.
The Ombudsman can look into complaints about services provided within a private hospital if the NHS funded the service, or complaints about NHS nursing or facilities even if the treatment itself was privately funded in an NHS hospital. If you think your care and treatment falls into this category you will need to complete the NHS complaints procedure before the Ombudsman will consider the complaint. Alternatively contact us for more information.
Any complaints about treatment or service you have received as part of privately-funded healthcare will need to be made to the healthcare provider directly in the first instance.
Once you have a response to your complaint, you may have the option of going to the Independent Healthcare Advisory Service (IHAS) which represents some independent healthcare providers. They have a Complaints Code of Practice which includes an independent adjudication service. You can find out whether the organisation you have a complaint about is a member and access their forms on their website: www.independenthealthcare.org.uk.
Alternatively if your complaint is about privately funded Dental or Optical Treatment, you can contact the Dental Complaints Service http://www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk/ or the Optical Consumer Complaints Service http://www.opticalcomplaints.co.uk/index.html who maybe able to help.
