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Guide · Health cover and care

Your Service Your Say: making a complaint about a maternity or child health service

Four stages, each with a clock on it, and one line the process will not cross. Knowing where that line falls is what stops a complaint being sent back months later.

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Republic of Ireland · About a 7-minute read · Facts checked 12 August 2026

Most people who want to complain about a maternity ward, a public health nurse visit or a children's clinic never do. Not because they change their mind, but because it is not clear who to tell, whether it counts, or whether anything happens afterwards. There is a named process with deadlines written into it, and it is worth knowing before you need it.

The short version

What it is called
Your Service Your Say, the HSE's feedback and complaints process
Deadline to complain
Within 12 months of the event, or of becoming aware of it
Stages
Four, from a word with a staff member up to the Ombudsman
First contact
A complaints officer contacts you within 5 working days if there is to be an investigation
Full response
Within 30 working days, then an update every 20 working days if it runs longer
Outside the process
Clinical judgement: a medical decision about diagnosis, care or treatment
Who decides
The HSE, then the Office of the Ombudsman or the Ombudsman for Children

Start with the service, not with a form

Stage 1 is giving feedback directly to a staff member, and it is a real stage rather than a courtesy step to be skipped. If it is something they can sort out on the spot, they will. If they cannot, or it is complex, they pass it to their manager, who will try to deal with it within 48 hours.

If the manager cannot resolve it in that time, it goes to a complaints officer and becomes a formal complaint at stage 2, if you agree. That consent matters: the process does not escalate over your head. A staff member can also send it straight to a complaints officer without waiting, if the issue is serious or involves a near miss, harm or an incident.

You can also go directly to Your Service Your Say instead, by email to yoursay@hse.ie, by freephone on 1800 424 555 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm), or by posting a completed feedback form to Your Service Your Say at Oak House, Limetree Avenue, Millennium Park, Naas, County Kildare, W91 KDC2. Forms are available in 24 languages, and there is a separate form for under 18s.

The four stages and the clock on each

This is the part no leaflet puts in one place, and it is the reason to write the dates down as you go. Working days, not calendar days, throughout.

  1. Stage 1, with the service. A staff member deals with it, or escalates to a manager who tries to resolve it within 48 hours.
  2. Stage 2, a complaints officer. They contact you within 5 working days if an investigation is needed, respond within 30 working days, and update you every 20 working days after that if it takes longer. You get a report with findings and recommendations.
  3. Stage 3, an internal review. If you are unhappy with the recommendations, a review officer looks at them again, within 20 working days. The letter that comes with your report tells you how to ask.
  4. Stage 4, an external review. The Office of the Ombudsman, or the Ombudsman for Children where the complaint concerns a child. Both are free and independent of the HSE.

The HSE also has to acknowledge a written complaint within 5 working days, so silence past that point is itself something you can point to.

Twelve months is the limit. You must complain within 12 months of the event, or within 12 months of becoming aware of it. A complaints officer can extend that where there are special circumstances, but it is a discretion rather than a right. If something happened during a birth and you are only now able to think about it, that clock is the first thing to check.

The line the process draws

The HSE complaints system looks at administrative practice, meaning the way decisions are made and how services operate. A complaint qualifies if the practice was not fair or reliable, and Citizens Information lists what that covers: something taken without proper authority, taken on irrelevant grounds, the result of negligence or carelessness, based on wrong or incomplete information, or improperly discriminatory.

What it will not examine is clinical judgement: a medical decision about diagnosis, care or treatment, or an action taken solely on the advice of someone exercising that judgement. This is the single most common reason a complaint about a birth goes nowhere, and it is not a loophole. It is written into the system, and the Ombudsman for Children applies the same exclusion.

Also outside the process:

  • Anything that is, or has been, before a court or tribunal.
  • The recruitment, appointment, or terms and conditions of a member of staff.
  • The registration of a birth, marriage or death that could instead be appealed under section 60 of the Civil Registration Act 2004.
  • Anything that could prejudice a Garda investigation.
  • Anything already brought under a different statutory complaints procedure.

That third one catches people on this site in particular. If your complaint is really about how a birth was registered, and the decision carries its own appeal, the complaints process is not the route. Our guide to registering a birth in Ireland covers who handles that.

A concern about a named professional's conduct or practice is a different thing again from either. The Ombudsman for Children's Office, which cannot investigate employment matters, points people to the employer first and then to the relevant professional regulator.

Check the hospital is actually the HSE

Worth two minutes before you write anything, because it decides where the letter goes. The HSE is clear that some health services are not part of the HSE, including voluntary and private providers and some services that receive HSE funding. Its own list names your GP, your dentist, a private nursing home, a voluntary hospital, a day service, and other health and social care services.

For those, you contact the service directly and ask about its complaints policy and process, and that service investigates. A hospital can be publicly funded and still sit outside the HSE, so do not assume the HSE process is the right one just because your care was free at the point of use. If you are not sure which category yours falls into, Your Service Your Say can tell you, and so can a staff member at the service.

Public health nurse visits, community services and HSE-run hospitals are squarely inside the HSE process. Complaints officers sit across the HSE and each handles specific services, so asking for the complaints officer for your service by name gets you further than a general address.

Complaining on your baby's behalf

A newborn is a service user who cannot complain for themselves. Where someone cannot make a complaint on their own behalf because of age, illness or disability, someone else can do it for them, and that list includes a close relative or carer, anyone appointed by law or by the courts, a legal representative, and anyone else acting with the person's consent.

A parent complaining about their child's care is doing exactly what the process expects, and the Ombudsman for Children's Office accepts complaints from parents, extended family and professionals working with children, as well as from children themselves.

You do not have to do it on your own

The Patient Advocacy Service is free, independent of the HSE and confidential, and supports people making a complaint about a HSE-funded public acute hospital or a nursing home. They will help you write it, explain what to expect, and explain your options if there is a delay or you are unhappy with the outcome. The helpline is 0818 293 003.

If you have a disability and need help, the National Advocacy Service for People with Disabilities may be able to support you. And if you are not able to give feedback yourself, the HSE's own guidance is to ask a relative, carer or advocate to do it for you.

What to put in it

The HSE asks for the same seven things every time, so a complaint that already contains them is harder to send back for more information:

  • What happened, and when.
  • Who was involved.
  • Where it happened.
  • What your concerns are.
  • Anything you have already done to try to resolve it.
  • What you want to happen now.
  • Any extra information, and copies of relevant documents.

Citizens Information adds one piece of practical advice worth taking: make the formal complaint in writing. It fixes the date, which matters for the 12 month limit and for every deadline that runs from it.

Who decides

The HSE runs Your Service Your Say and its complaints officers make the findings and recommendations at stage 2. If you remain unhappy after the internal review, the Office of the Ombudsman, or the Ombudsman for Children where a child is affected, carries out an independent external review. The Ombudsman for Children can generally only investigate a complaint made within two years of the action, and expects you to have gone to the service first.

The rest of it, in order

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Official sources

  1. HSE: Give feedback through Your Service Your Say (what to include, the contact details and address, forms in 24 languages, complaining for someone else)
  2. HSE: Stages in the Your Service Your Say process (the four stages, the 48 hour, 5, 30 and 20 working day timings)
  3. HSE: Ways to give feedback (complaints officers, and which services are not part of the HSE)
  4. Citizens Information: Making a complaint about a health service (the 12 month limit, administrative practice, the exclusions, who can complain on your behalf, acknowledgement in 5 working days)
  5. Citizens Information: Patient Advocacy Service (what it covers and the helpline)
  6. Ombudsman for Children's Office: Complaints (who can complain, the two year limit, clinical judgement, professional regulators)

Facts checked against the official pages on 12 August 2026. This is general information about a complaints procedure, not medical or legal advice, and nothing here is a view on any clinical decision. The HSE administers Your Service Your Say and its complaints officers make the findings; the Office of the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman for Children carry out external reviews. If you have a concern about your own health or your baby's, contact your GP, your maternity service or the HSE. Rules can change; always confirm on the official pages linked above.

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