You can complain about your own treatment yourself.

You can also authorise another person to file a complaint on your behalf, for example a relative, a lawyer or an association. If this person or association does not already have authorization to handle replies to complaints, you can use the consent form for replies to complaints.

As the custodial parent, you can also complain about a treatment your child has received. However, children over the age of 15 can normally file their own complaint.

If you are the next-of-kin of a deceased patient, you can normally also complain about the treatment that the deceased received. The next-of-kin will usually be the deceased’s spouse, parents or children.

If you want to complain about healthcare treatment or a violation of your or your child’s patient rights, you must complain to the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints (Styrelsen for Patientklager) via www.borger.dk.

You complain by filling in a form available on www.borger.dk under Sundhed og sygdom/ Klage over sundhedsvæsenet/ Klage over brud på patientrettigheder (Health and illness/How to complain about the national health service/How to complain about violation of patient rights).

The Danish Agency for Patient Complaints will reject the complaint if it is sent by regular mail or email from citizens who are not exempt from digital mail or who cannot be exempted from using the digital complaints form due to age, illness or language difficulties.

Criticism of place of treatment or individuals?

You choose whether you want to complain about one or more specific healthcare professionals or a place of treatment (department, clinic etc.).

If you would like any criticism to be directed at one or more specific healthcare professionals, your complaint will be decided by the Disciplinary Board of the Danish Healthcare System (Sundhedsvæsenets Disciplinærnævn).

If you would like any criticism to be directed at the place of treatment in question, your complaint will be decided by the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints. However, complaints about access to patient records are always decided by the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints.

If you are in doubt about which option you should choose, you can request guidance at the Patient Office or from the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints.

The Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board deals with complaints about forced interventions that have occurred during hospitalisation in a psychiatric ward. Forced intervention is an intervention without your consent.

You can complain about:

• Compulsory admission
• Compulsory detention
• Being brought back to a psychiatric ward by the police
• Forced treatment
• Forced immobilisation
• Use of physical force, including administration of sedatives
• Protective immobilisation
• Use of personal alarm and tracking systems as well as special door locks
• Personal shielding that lasts for a continuous period of more than 24 hours
• Locking of doors in the ward

If you are subjected to force during your hospitalisation, you must be assigned a patient adviser who can, for example, provide you with guidance and advice in connection with any complaints.

You can complain to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board if you have been subjected to force during your hospitalisation in a psychiatric ward. There are no special requirements for the format of the complaint. It may be oral or in writing. The complaint should be submitted – possibly via your patient adviser – to the treatment unit where you are being treated.

The unit is then required to ensure that your complaint is passed on to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board.

Appeal against the Board’s decision

If you wish to appeal against a decision made by the Psychiatric Patients' Complaints Board, you must send your appeal/request to the Psychiatric Patients' Complaints Board. The Board will then ensure that your appeal is passed on to the right authority.

More information

You can find more information about how to complain about the use of force in psychiatry at Nævnenes Hus' website.

This may, for example, be complaints about waiting time for examination or treatment, staff behaviour, conditions of the premises, food and cleaning.

You can submit a written complaint to:

The department management for the department in question

or

Hospital management
Central Region Denmark Psychiatry
Tingvej 15
DK-8800 Viborg

Or send us an email via borger.dk here

Complaints to the Danish Agency for Patient Complaints must be submitted within two years after you first suspected or should have suspected a failure in your treatment. However, the complaint must have been submitted no later than five years after the treatment was provided.

There is no deadline for complaints to the Psychiatric Patients’ Complaints Board or service complaints. Service complaints concern inquiries to Central Denmark Region, for example about having waited for too long in the waiting room or the like.

All patients are covered by a public patient compensation scheme managed by Patienterstatningen, the Patient Compensation Association. The scheme covers you if you are injured in the course of your treatment.

The task of the Patient Compensation Association is to ensure that patients receive the compensation to which they are legally entitled.

There is no charge for filing a case.

For more information see also Central Region Denmark’s Patient Office’s information about compensation.