Free secure complaint management for GP practices
Your practice gets its own email address to give to patients. Each complaint is securely processed and a draft acknowledgement is prepared for your team to approve. We are launching full complaint investigation shortly.
New complaint
A complaint letter has arrived in the practice inbox. ComplaintGuard is creating the record and preparing a draft acknowledgement.
Charlotte Bennett — complaint.pdf
Fictional complaint · PDF · received 14 Oct 2026
Reading your document…
- Reading your document
- Identifying the concerns raised
- Analysing the complaint
- Preparing the record and acknowledgement
Complaints, handled in one place
Every complaint emailed to your practice becomes a record, gets an acknowledgement drafted for your staff to approve, and stays tracked until that acknowledgement has been sent.
- Nothing gets lost. Each complaint email becomes a proper record in one place, rather than sitting in a shared inbox that anyone can miss.
- The legal deadline is met. Every complaint is acknowledged on time, with a draft your staff approve before it goes out.
- A member of your team stays in charge. ComplaintGuard prepares the acknowledgement; a person at your practice reads it and decides to send it.
What you can do
- Get a complaints email address
- Your practice gets its own ComplaintGuard email address. Add it to your website and give it to patients who want to make a complaint.
- Record complaints automatically
- Each email a patient sends to that address is brought into ComplaintGuard and turned into a draft complaint record for your team.
- Approve acknowledgements
- A draft acknowledgement is prepared for each complaint. A member of practice staff checks and approves it, then it is sent securely to the patient.
- Track deadlines
- See acknowledgement dates for each complaint, so nothing sits waiting without anyone noticing.
Coming in the next version
Full complaint responses
Help with preparing the full response and managing the complaint through to resolution is coming in the next version. For now, ComplaintGuard handles intake, the complaint record and the acknowledgement.
Who can use it
ComplaintGuard is for staff in NHS GP practices who handle complaints, such as practice managers and administrators.
If you are a patientYou do not need an account. Email the complaints address shown on your GP practice's website. Your practice uses ComplaintGuard to receive and acknowledge your complaint.
How to get access
Registration is by NHS work email, then we approve manually
Register with your @nhs.net or @nhs.uk email address. We check every practice registration by hand before the account is activated, so only verified practice staff get in.
Register with your NHS work email
Register using your NHS work email address (@nhs.net or @nhs.uk). Personal email addresses are not accepted.
Find your practice
Search for your practice so your account is linked to the right organisation. If your practice has already registered, we will tell you.
Wait for verification before activation
You confirm your email address, and we check the practice registration before the account is activated. This is a manual step, so access is not immediate.
If your practice is already registered, you do not register again. Ask your practice administrator to invite you — additional staff accounts are created by invitation only.
Once your practice is approved, you sign in with your email address and multi-factor authentication. If your practice is enrolled in CIS2, you can sign in with CIS2 instead. We will move to CIS2 sign-in for everyone in due course.
Cost
Free to use
ComplaintGuard is free for NHS GP practices. There is no charge to register your practice or to add staff by invitation.
Reporting
Available now
You can view the complaints recorded in ComplaintGuard and the details held against them, including dates, categories, actions and outcomes. This gives your practice a record you can refer to and use when compiling your own returns, such as the annual written complaints collection.
ComplaintGuard does not submit anything on your behalf. Any national return remains the responsibility of the practice.
Coming soon
Patient safety event recording (LFPSE)
We are working on support for recording patient safety events in line with the Learn from Patient Safety Events service. This is not available yet and is not part of the service today.
Annual written complaints collection (KO41b)
We are working on support for compiling the information needed for the KO41b annual written complaints collection. This is not available yet and is not part of the service today.
Security and information governance
Complaints contain sensitive patient information. Here is how ComplaintGuard protects it.
- Staff approve before anything is sent
- No acknowledgement goes to a patient until a member of practice staff has checked and approved it.
- Access for verified practice staff only
- Accounts need an NHS work email address and a manually verified practice. Other staff join only by invitation.
- A record of who did what
- Key actions are logged, so your practice can see who handled each complaint and when.
- Verified staff, secure sign-in
- Sign-in uses your email address and multi-factor authentication. Practices enrolled in CIS2 can sign in with CIS2, the NHS Care Identity Service.
Standards we work to
- DCB0129 clinical risk management
- Cyber Essentials
- NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit
- ISO/IEC 27001 — certification in agreement
- Registered with the ICO
- CREST-accredited penetration testing
- NHS CIS2 (Care Identity Service)
- Securely hosted in the UK
Help and support
- How long does it take to get access?
- Registration is not instant. You confirm your NHS work email address, and we verify the practice registration manually before the account is activated. We will email you when your practice is active.
- I work at a practice that has already registered. What do I do?
- Ask your practice administrator to send you an invitation. Additional staff accounts are created by invitation from an administrator at your practice, not by registering again.
- Is it really free?
- Yes — ComplaintGuard is free for NHS GP practices. There is no charge to register or to invite colleagues.
- How do patients send us a complaint?
- Once your practice is active, you get a ComplaintGuard email address. Put it on your website and give it to patients. Emails sent to it appear in ComplaintGuard as draft complaint records.
- Are acknowledgements sent to patients automatically?
- Only after approval. ComplaintGuard prepares a draft acknowledgement, and a member of practice staff approves it before it is sent securely to the patient.
- Does ComplaintGuard write the full complaint response?
- Not yet. Support for full responses is coming in the next version.
Read more on our security and information governance page.
Still need help? Email hello@complaintguard.uk and tell us your practice name.