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ISCAS: the complaints adjudication service for independent healthcare
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The Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS) is the adjudication scheme for complaints in private healthcare. It provides the services of an independent adjudicator for patients who have been treated in subscribing organisations and remain dissatisfied with how their complaints have been handled by the healthcare provider.
ISCAS is one of the Patients Association’s supporters, and we are working together on a number of initiatives to ensure that patients treated privately, whether through insurance, a workplace scheme or self-funded, have access to an effective independent review stage to complaints. The Patients Association has endorsed ISCAS’s Patient’s guide, which outlines how patients can make a complaint about a private healthcare provider, and encourages people to consider what they want to achieve as an outcome to their complaint. The guide takes patients through a three-stage process, as outlined below, and describes each step and the timelines.
Other resources on the ISCAS website that people may find useful include a subscriber directory where patients can check whether the private healthcare provider or NHS private patient unit is subscribed to ISCAS.
You can find information on ISCAS and its complaints process here. More information on private healthcare can be found on our website here.
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From the helpline: entitlement to free NHS care
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This week we heard from Mark*, who got in touch to request information about his son and daughter-in-law’s entitlement to NHS care. Mark’s son, who had lived in the United States for over 10 years, was planning to return on a permanent basis to the UK with his pregnant wife, and Mark was seeking information about his daughter-in-law's entitlement to NHS pre-natal and maternity care. Mark also wanted to ascertain whether his son would be entitled to free NHS care.
Our helpline adviser explained that hospital treatment is free to people classed as ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK. To be considered ordinarily resident and entitled to free hospital treatment, people must be living in the UK on a lawful and properly settled basis for the time being. Our adviser explained to Mark that although his family members plan to settle in the UK, they would not be entitled to free NHS care except emergency care, until they became 'ordinarily resident'. We signposted Mark to the NHS UK website to find out more, and recommended he contact NHS England for further advice and information on how to establish his family as ordinarily residents.
If you need health or care advice, call 0208 423 8999 between 9.30 and 5pm on weekdays, or email helpline@patients-association.com
*Name has been changed.
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What our team is reading this week
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