Complaints

1How to make a complaint

If you are unhappy with the Healir website, account, consultation journey, order process, subscription, payment, customer support or another part of the Healir service, you can complain directly to Healir.

You can also contact support@healir.com if you are unsure whether your issue should be treated as a complaint. We will route it appropriately.

2What to include

Providing enough information helps us understand and investigate your complaint. Where relevant, please include:

• your full name and the email address associated with your Healir account;
• your order number, prescription reference or other relevant reference number;
• a clear description of what happened and when;
• the people, services or organisations involved, if known;
• any steps already taken to resolve the issue;
• what outcome you would like us to consider;
• copies of relevant messages, photographs or documents where these are genuinely needed to explain the issue.

Please avoid sending more medical or identity information than is necessary. If we need additional information, we will ask for it through an appropriate channel.

3What happens after you complain

We will record the complaint, identify the part of the service it relates to and decide who is best placed to investigate it. We may need information from our customer-support team, the relevant prescriber or clinician, APC Labs Ltd, a payment provider, a delivery provider or another service provider involved in the issue.

Healir aims to acknowledge a formal complaint within 2 working days and to provide a substantive response within 20 working days where reasonably possible. Some complaints, particularly those requiring clinical, pharmacy, technical or third-party investigation, may take longer.

If we cannot provide a full response within our target timeframe, we will explain the reason for the delay and, where possible, tell you when we expect the investigation to be completed.

Our response will normally explain what we considered, the outcome of our investigation, any action we have taken or propose to take, and any appropriate next step available to you.

4Complaints about clinical care or prescribing

Clinical decisions about whether prescription treatment is suitable are made by appropriately qualified healthcare professionals. Healir does not require a prescriber to approve treatment and does not overturn an independent clinical decision for commercial reasons.

If your complaint concerns a prescribing decision, the quality of a clinical assessment, clinical communication, treatment suitability, a side effect or another clinical issue, we may refer the relevant part of your complaint to the healthcare professional or clinical provider responsible for that part of your care.

We will tell you when a complaint is being referred or jointly investigated. Healir will continue to deal with any part of the complaint that concerns the Healir platform, administration or customer service.

5Complaints about APC Labs Ltd or pharmacy services

APC Labs Ltd is Healir's dispensing pharmacy partner. It is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council under pharmacy registration number 9012301. The Superintendent Pharmacist is Shazlee Ahsan, GPhC registration number 2046605.

If your complaint concerns compounding, dispensing, pharmacy checks, pharmacy records, the medicine supplied, the condition of a medicine, a pharmacy error or another pharmacy service, you may complain to Healir and we can route the pharmacy part appropriately, or you may contact APC Labs Ltd directly.

APC Labs Ltd's published complaints procedure states that complaints are normally acknowledged within 2 working days and that it aims to provide a comprehensive response within 10 working days. If further investigation is required, APC Labs states that it will keep the complainant informed about delays and the expected timeframe.

6Orders, dispensing and delivery problems

If your concern relates to an order that is missing, delayed, damaged, incorrect, appears tampered with or does not match what was prescribed, contact Healir as soon as possible at support@healir.com.

Do not use medicine that appears damaged, tampered with, incorrectly labelled or different from what you were expecting until you have received appropriate advice. We may need APC Labs Ltd or the relevant delivery provider to investigate before a replacement, refund or other remedy can be arranged.

Nothing in this complaints procedure limits any statutory consumer right or remedy that applies to you.

7Privacy and data protection complaints

If your concern is about how Healir has collected, used, shared, retained or protected your personal information, contact our data protection contact at data@healir.com.

We will consider privacy complaints under our data-protection procedures as well as this complaints process where appropriate. More information about your rights is available in our Privacy Policy.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data-protection regulator. You do not need our permission to contact the ICO.

8Urgent patient-safety concerns

If a complaint identifies an immediate or serious patient-safety concern, we may prioritise safety action before completing the normal complaints investigation. This may include escalating the matter to a clinician, prescriber, pharmacist, APC Labs Ltd or another appropriate healthcare professional.

A complaint submitted through Healir should not be used to obtain emergency medical advice. Call 999 for an emergency. For urgent medical advice that is not an emergency, use NHS 111, your GP or another appropriate healthcare service.

9External escalation

Different external organisations deal with different types of concern. They are not substitutes for one another and may not resolve ordinary customer-service or refund disputes.

• General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC): regulates registered pharmacies, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in Great Britain. Serious concerns about a pharmacy or pharmacy professional may be raised with the GPhC. The GPhC is not a general dispute-resolution body and does not resolve every pharmacy complaint.
• Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): handles concerns about data protection and information rights.
• Courts or other consumer routes: making a complaint does not remove any legal right you may have to pursue an appropriate consumer remedy or claim.

10Support, accessibility and representatives

If you need reasonable help to make or understand a complaint, contact us and tell us what support would help. We will make reasonable efforts to communicate in an accessible way.

You may ask another person to help you make a complaint. Where they need to discuss your account, health information or other confidential information with us, we may need to confirm that you have authorised them and verify the identities of the people involved.

11Confidentiality and complaint records

We use complaint information to investigate and respond to the concern, manage patient safety, meet legal or regulatory obligations and improve our service. Access is limited to people who need the information for those purposes.

Where another organisation or healthcare professional needs to investigate part of the complaint, we may share the information reasonably necessary for that purpose. Health and other sensitive information will be handled in accordance with applicable data-protection and confidentiality requirements.

We may retain complaint records for an appropriate period for accountability, safety, legal, regulatory and service-improvement purposes, as explained further in our Privacy Policy.