Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and Complaints

You can contact us by telephone, email, and letter or by completing the feedback form:

The PALS telephone line is open Monday to Friday, from 9:30am to 4:30pm, excluding bank holidays. If we are unable to take your call, please leave a message. We aim to respond to all messages and emails within two working days. Full contact details are at the bottom of this page.

NHS England have produced an awareness-raising film for people with a learning disability, autistic people, their families, and carers which can help when giving feedback, raising a concern or making a complaint. 

Complaints 

We understand that sometimes you may not have a satisfactory experience of our services and we want to hear about when things go wrong. You can talk to any of our staff about your complaint or contact PALS who will help you with the process.  

We investigate all formal complaints so we can learn and improve our services for our patients and service users.

A complaint can be made face to face, by phone, email, online or in a letter. Full contact details are at the bottom of this page.

We will contact you to acknowledge we have received your complaint within three working days. A patient experience adviser will discuss your concerns with you and advise on the likely timescales involved for us to respond. This can depend on the complexity of the complaint and the organisations involved. The patient experience adviser will keep you up to date throughout the process.  

Please be assured that all complaints are handled sensitively, seriously and in confidence.  Please also be assured that making a complaint will not prejudice the service we provide. If you are at all concerned that your complaint is having a negative effect on the service we provide, then please do let us know.  

What if I remain unhappy?

If you are not happy with the outcome of the complaints process you may ask the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to consider your complaint. You can contact them via: 

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman 
Millbank Tower 
Millbank 
London, SW1P 4QP 

Complaints Helpline 
Phone: 0345 015 4033  

You can contact the PHSO for more information about making complaints via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

You can also contact the Care Quality Commission (CQC) who are the independent regulators of health and social care in England. 

Phone: 03000 616 161  

Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Phone lines are open Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm, excluding bank holidays. 

Independent Advocacy Services 

A free, confidential service is available if you need help with making your complaint: 

We would love to hear about your experience

Here are some recent examples of feedback we have received: 

• “You feel PALS are on your side, who listen to how you are feeling.” 
• “I felt that PALS took my complaint and comments seriously.” 
• “I should have contacted you sooner as you did exactly what was needed.” 
• “Very prompt and empathetic response from PALS.” 
• “I was rather upset by the situation I was sharing with the PALS team. The person I spoke to was an excellent listener. I was treated with kind understanding and professional expertise.” 

Additional feedback links

Care Opinion – A website enabling you to share your experiences of UK health and care services, good or bad. 

Healthwatch – The website of health and social care champion Healthwatch, you share your feedback and have your say. 

Patient Experience Report

Each year Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust compiles a Patient Experience Report, which provides a summary of patient experience activity, as well as details of feedback received via compliments, complaints, Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and the Friends and Family Test (FFT). To see the most up to date information, read our latest report. 

Other local PALS Teams