The Adult Social Care Complaints Procedure

Your experiences can help us improve our services, so thank you for your feedback. We aim to do our best but recognise that sometimes things do go wrong. When this happens, we have a formal complaint process. 

The Complaints team will make contact with you within two days upon receiving your complaint to establish if your complaint can be resolved prior to entering the formal complaints process. If your complaint cannot be resolved at this time the Complaints team will proceed to undertake all the required checks prior to your complaint being investigated.  A written response to your complaint will be provided within 20 working days from the date your complaint is processed for investigation, however, if your complaint is complex you will be advised of the extended response due date.  

Stage 1

The council will nominate an appropriate officer to be your point of contact for your complaint. All Stage 1 complaints should be acknowledged within two working days and a full written reply sent within 20 working days from the date it is processed for investigation. If additional time is required due to the complexity of your complaint you will be advised of the date.

Stage 2

If you, as the customer, are dissatisfied with the outcome of the Stage 1 investigation, you can request the council arrange for your complaint to be reviewed.  You will be allocated another officer to be your point of contact for your complaint review.

All Stage 2 complaints should be responded to within 20 working days from the date of receipt.

Unhappy with your response

You will be told when you have exhausted the council’s complaints procedure. If you are still unhappy with the response received, you may want to ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to consider your complaint. They can be contacted by visiting the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website.