Making a complaint about adult social care

• a person who receives the services or has received the service, the service user
• someone acting on behalf of the service user with their consent
• a person who is affected or likely to be affected by the actions or decisions made by adult social care

The sorts of things you may complain about are:

• if you receive a poor quality service, including services we have arranged but are delivered by an independent care provider
• our staff’s attitude or behaviour
• your assessment, care plan or review of your services
• the charge you pay for your service and how we have assessed it
• any service adult social care provides

When you contact us with your concerns, we will see if we can sort out the problem straight away without you needing to do anything else.

• we will acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days
• we may telephone you to discuss your concerns

We will let you know:

• if it would be helpful to have a meeting to discuss your concerns
• how long it is likely to take us to examine your complaint
• who will reply to you

This is known as your complaint plan.

If you are not happy with the manager’s response to your complaint, you should contact the complaints manager straight away. We will discuss why you are still dissatisfied and what else you think should be done to put things right.

We will see if there is any other way to resolve your complaint. We may for example, suggest a meeting with the senior manager to talk over your concerns (this is known as a local resolution meeting) or mediation.

If we agree that your complaint cannot be resolved locally, and that it needs to be investigated, we will appoint an investigating officer to look into your complaint. The investigating officer will contact you and write down the things you are unhappy with and what you want done about them. This is your complaint statement.

The investigating officer will discuss with you how long the investigation is likely to take. The investigating officer will write a report and may make recommendations to the relevant head of service.

You will receive a copy of the investigating officer’s report and a letter from the head of service setting out what they propose to do to sort out the complaint. If you are not satisfied with the final decision, or the way the local authority have dealt with your complaint, you may contact the Local Government Ombudsman directly.

You may contact the Local Government Ombudsman at any time. Their contact details are:

• Local Government Ombudsman, PO Box 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH
• call 0300 061 0614
• text “call back” to 0762 480 3014
• fax 024 7682 0001
• email advice@lgo.org.uk
• online complaint form
• visit the Local Government Ombudsman site