Complain about Adult Social Care services

We aim to deliver high quality services, but we know that sometimes things go wrong and that you might not always be satisfied with our services.

If you are unhappy with Adult Social Care services, it can often be quickly put right by contacting the person or team involved.

Try to make your complaint as soon as possible after the problem occurs and try not to leave it for more than a year as this can make it difficult to find out what went wrong.

How your complaint is handled

Complaints about Adult Social Care Services come under a national legal framework. 

Your complaint will be assessed to determine how it will be handled (through the national framework or our corporate complaints procedure) and we will aim to resolve your complaint within 3 working days.

If this is not possible, a manager in Adult Social Care will consider whether they or someone independent of the service will carry out a complaint investigation and we will send you an acknowledgement letter.

During the investigation

You will be contacted during the investigation to:

• discuss your complaint
• agree a date by which they will fully respond to you
• keep you fully informed
• ensure all aspects are fully responded to

We will write to you confirming the outcome of the investigation, explaining any actions we will take.

Reviewing our decision

If you are not satisfied with our response you can ask for a more senior manager to review your complaint.

They will aim to complete this review and write to you with their decision within 28 days.

If you remain dissatisfied

If you are not satisfied with our review response or you feel we have not handled your complaint properly, you can contact the ombudsman.

The ombudsman will not normally look into a complaint until the Council has had an opportunity to deal with it. However, you can contact their Advice Team at any time.