General Training Writing Task 1 · formal · complaint

Formal complaint regarding emergency department waiting times

You went to the local hospital's Emergency Department with your young child who had severe stomach pains. You had to wait for almost four hours before your daughter was treated by a doctor.

Write a letter to the manager of the hospital. In you letter. In your letter:

mention the problems you faced at the hospital
mention why the hopsital is important for the local community
suggest on ways to imrpove their services

Write at least 150 words. You do not need to write any addresses. Begin your letter: Dear ...,

Band 8 sample letter

Dear Hospital Manager,

I am writing to express my profound dissatisfaction regarding the care my daughter received at the Emergency Department on the evening of 12 October. We arrived at 7:00 PM with my six-year-old suffering from acute abdominal pain, yet we were forced to wait nearly four hours before seeing a doctor.

During this period, the waiting area was severely overcrowded and lacked adequate seating. Despite my daughter’s visible distress and persistent crying, the triage staff provided no updates or reassurance, leaving us feeling entirely neglected. It was distressing to witness a young child in such pain left unattended in a chaotic environment for an extended duration.

Our local hospital is a vital pillar of this community, providing indispensable medical support for families who have nowhere else to turn during urgent health crises. Because of this essential role, residents rely on the facility to operate with efficiency and compassion.

To improve these services, I suggest implementing a more robust triage communication system to keep patients informed of wait times. Furthermore, increasing the number of staff during peak evening hours would significantly alleviate these unacceptable delays.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these necessary improvements.

Yours faithfully,

Jonathan Miller

201 words. Names and details are invented; write your own.

Why this scores well

A Band 8 response covers all bullet points with a clear, consistent formal tone and sophisticated, precise vocabulary. A common Band 6 mistake is failing to address the importance of the hospital to the community, or providing an overly emotional, informal rant rather than a structured, professional complaint.

Write to an organisation or someone you do not know: open with Dear Sir or Madam, close with Yours faithfully.
If you know the person's surname, use Dear Mr or Ms and close with Yours sincerely.
No contractions, no slang; polite indirect requests such as I would be grateful if you could.

Useful phrases from the letter

profound: very great or intense in feeling
acute: present or experienced to a severe degree
indispensable: absolutely necessary and cannot be done without
triage: the process of determining the priority of patients
alleviate: to make suffering or a problem less severe
pillar: a person or thing regarded as reliably important

Write your own and get a band

Answer this prompt in a timed General Training writing test and get a band for task achievement, coherence, vocabulary and grammar, with the sentences to fix.

Practise IELTS General writing

On your phone? Get the BandLadder app.

Frequently asked questions

Is this letter formal or informal?

Formal. Write to an organisation or someone you do not know: open with Dear Sir or Madam, close with Yours faithfully.

How long should an IELTS General Training letter be?

At least 150 words, and 160 to 200 is the comfortable range. Spend about 20 minutes on it and leave 40 for Task 2, which carries twice the marks.