Lichfield Psychiatric Chambers is unable to provide a crisis or urgent medical service. We check our e-mail and phone messages at least once daily on weekdays and will deal with any issues as they arise. We do not normally check either over weekends. We aim to respond to all enquiries on the same day but it can take up to 3 working days. Therefore, you must please not rely on e-mails and voicemail messages left for us to help you in an emergency. If your issue is more urgent, or an emergency, please seek help from:

• Your GP.
• NHS 111.
• Google the details of your local NHS mental health crisis team and contact them. We recommend you do this now and put the number in your phone so that it is available if you need it.
• Dial 999 or go to your local Emergency Department if you can no longer keep yourself and others safe, or if your physical health has been significantly affected.

If you need additional support but it has not yet reached crisis point, you can also seek help from:

• The Samaritans on 116 123 (link to https://www.samaritans.org).
• The Combat Stress Mental Health Helpline on 0800138 1619 if you are a UK Armed Forces Veteran.

Please do let us know when you are able that there has been an emergency or urgent situation so that we are aware and can get into contact with you soonest to assist with any remaining issues where we can.

Lichfield Psychiatric Chambers values and encourages patients to speak up if they are concerned about any of the aspect of the care we provide. This is a powerful tool that enables us to improve our service and learn from events to minimise recurrence and lower risk. Therefore, please feel free to highlight your concerns to us, no matter how small, and we assure you we will be receptive and try to resolve it constructively. Your care will not be adversely affected if you do so.

If an informal approach to resolving the issue has not dealt with it to your satisfaction, we invite you to make a formal complaint. You can do so from the outset as well. If your complaint is around the care provided by one of the independent clinicians affiliated with us, we will forward the complaint to them to manage as per their policy.

You can submit your complaint as follows:

• Through our contact page on this website.
• In writing to our postal address available on the contact page.
• By email to info@lichfieldpsychiatricchambers.co.uk

We have three levels for the management of complaints:

Level 1. Dr Coetzee will acknowledge your complaint within 10 working days and responded within 20 working days. Dr Coetzee will attempt to resolve the complaint by reviewing the information relating to the complaint and then seeking to discuss it with you, provided you are willing. Please feel free to involve a third party in in this discussion if you need support or advocacy. It is very helpful if you could state in your complaint what redress you are seeking, in other words what you think we should do to resolve your complaint.

Level 2. If resolution is not achieved, Dr Coetzee will contract an independent and suitably qualified healthcare manager/clinician review the complaint within 40 working days of submission. The reviewer will be selected based on the nature of your complaint to make sure they are suitably qualified and experienced to provide a credible review. This will not be one of our affiliated clinicians or someone Dr Coetzee works with on a regular basis in his substantive employment.

Level 3. If your remain dissatisfied, we will advise you to contact the Care Quality Commission (our registration number is 1-22151904611) or the General Medical Council (Dr Coetzee’s registration number is 4259561). If your complaint relates to how we managed your personal data, you can direct your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (our registration number is ZB863802). You can contact these organisations at any time if you feel your concerns cannot be addressed by our process above.

Download our privacy statement

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