to expect a reply to a complaint I made to a doctor's surgery?

[Harrogatemum]

My MIL was over from Australia for 3 weeks recently and had cause to need to visit a doctor. She walked up to the local surgery (my family is not registered there), explained that she was from Australia but needed to see a doc. They rang up their other surgery and checked that they could treat her and she had an appointment the next day.

When she came back from the appointment, she had been charged £60. She is 66 years old. I was very surprised as I have been treated for free in Aus before and expected there to be a reciprocal healthcare agreement. I checked the internet and found I was right!

I tried to ring the surgery but got the engaged tone so many times that I found they had an internet site and emailed the manager there with an address that was on the site to check. I received no reply so three days later I went into the local surgery and asked. They rang the manager who said that she would have got a free consultation if she had twisted her ankle or sprained a wrist but was charged becuase it was for a pre-existing condition.........I went away, checked the internet again and still think I am right that she should not have been charged.

So I emailed again, asking for a full explanation and to ask for some background on why they had charged her. That was a week ago, I have had DIDDLY SQUAT in response...........do you think I am being unreasonable to expect one?

I don't know what the norm is for surgerys but from a general customer service point of view I would expect at least an acknowledgement of your complaint within a couple of days and an idea of the timescale in which they'd get back to you.

they have probably not checked their email !

but you are not being unreasonable,no..call them and explain

I don't think YABU for expecting a response, however when i went over to Australia and had to see a Dr i had to pay and was told to claim it back on my travel insurance. Surely she can claim it back?

The practice clearly don't check their email account from the website. Fairly common- modern technology and all that . Use phone or snail mail.
If you still don't get a decent response, complain to your local Primary Care Trust.

You should be able to find out the protocol from the Surgery Manager or PCT -there should be defined timescales. Maybe they treated her as a private patient and charged accordingly ?

thanks all - I think they did treat her as a private patient....but why, without telling her first? She got bewildered and is very shy so would never ever complain or stand up for herself...hence why trying to sort it out now! And to be honest, re claiming it back, the receipt she got was pathetic to say the least, there is no way she will be able to claim it back from that, again, perhaps she should have said something but she will have been so overfaced by the whole experience that she will just have gone along with what they said.......