Patient Advice, Feedback and Complaints

As a patient, relative or carer you might want to turn to someone at the Royal Devon for help, advice or support. This is where our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS for short) comes in.

PALS is available to anyone using the Royal Devon’s services, including the RD&E Hospital, North Devon Hospital, community hospitals, specialist centres, including all Devon Sexual Health clinics (including Torquay Sexual Health Clinic) and community services.

Please give as much information as you can, including your name and address and hospital number. If you are not the patient, please provide these details for them.

Where possible, please list questions or issues you would like addressed and any outcome you are seeking.

We offer confidential advice, support and information. Your feedback assists us in developing better quality, higher standards of healthcare and improved experiences for all of our service users, carers and families.

Further advice is available here: Help us to get better at what we do

To find out more about the Royal Devon’s PALs service, visit the Royal Devon site.

We welcome all feedback, whether positive or negative, to help improve the service we provide. When we receive a complaint, we will:

• carry out an investigation and look at what happened
• make it clear what should have happened, versus what did happen along with any relevant guidance, procedures or policies used
• offer an apology or other statement of regret
• take steps to put matters right and detail any actions that have or will be taken

Our complaints procedure cannot look at disciplinary issues such as; whether a staff member should be sacked, ‘strike off’ a health professional or suspend their registration, or look at complaints about treatment provided privately unless it was paid for by the NHS.

Please be assured your complaint is not kept in your medical notes, so it will not affect your future care in any way.

We are committed to learning from all the complaints we receive. We may share your (anonymised) complaint with our Trust Board, ward teams, at safety meetings and on the Trust’s website to share our learning and improvements.

Please see our leaflet ‘Help us get better at what we do’ which explains the ways you can share your feedback.

You can make your complaint regarding any of the sexual health clinics, including our Torquay clinic, by contacting the PALS team on 01392 402093 or 01271 314090, via email to: rduh.complaints@nhs.net

For more information on complaints and the different ways to raise concerns, please see the Complaints section on the Royal Devon website

If you’ve experienced our health care services recently, either as a patient yourself or as a carer or friend of someone else, please tell us how it was. Was it good? What could have been better?

Tell us about your experiences on Care Opinion

If you’ve experienced our health care services recently, either as a patient yourself or as a carer or friend of someone else, please tell us how it was. Was it good? What could have been better?

Your story will be handled confidentially by the non-profit service Care Opinion, an independent organisation that provides an online forum for patient feedback. Your story may appear (without your name) on their website. Care Opinion asks the health service to respond to the feedback you share, but does not reveal your identity.

The service is independent of the Trust and the NHS.

For more information visit www.careopinion.org.uk or visit the Royal Devon website.