This Factsheet is about complaints relating to Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW). It should be read together with our ‘How to Complain’ webpage, available on the ‘Making A Complaint’ tab.
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) inspects and regulates all health care in Wales. HIW reviews and inspects NHS and independent healthcare organisations in Wales to provide assurance that services are safe and of good quality. If you think that HIW has not followed the law, regulations or guidance, we may be able to consider your complaint.
HIW’s main responsibilities include:
We can:
We cannot:
It is not HIW’s role to deal with complaints from patients about the treatment they received from the NHS. This is a matter that can be dealt with under the NHS complaints procedure. HIW may however act on any such information that might indicate a systemic failure of NHS services. Similarly, it is not HIW’s role to deal with complaints from patients about the treatment they received from independent healthcare providers. However, HIW will consider complaints and concerns from patients and professionals that independent providers may have breached relevant regulations.
Where providers of services or persons registered with HIW are not happy with any registration or enforcement action that HIW has undertaken, these complaints should be dealt with through the routes expressly provided for this purpose.
Further information about HIW, including their complaints procedure, can be found on its website: http://www.hiw.org.uk
We are independent and impartial; we cannot order public bodies to do what we recommend – but, in practice, they almost always do.
Examples of cases that we have looked at can be found on our website, under the ‘Publications’ tab on the ‘Our Findings’ page.
If you are unsure whether we would be able to look into your complaint, please contact us on 0300 790 0203 or ask@ombudsman.wales
Also available in Welsh.