Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind Complaints Policy

Transcription

1 1 Policy Statement Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind Complaints Policy 1.1 Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind aims to deal fairly, openly, systematically and in a timely manner with complaints about Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind s services, staff or resources, and to apply any lessons learned to improve our practice. 1.2 Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind has an appointed Complaints Officer, who is responsible for ensuring that the procedure below is followed at all times. Please refer to section 5 below for their details. 1.3 To ensure that everybody has a fair and equal opportunity to complain, Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind can assist you in putting the complaint in writing, or direct you to a similar resource external to Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind if you prefer. We can also direct you to independent advocacy support to represent your complaint to the organisation at an oral stage. Independent advocacy support might be provided, for example, by your Care Co-ordinator, by The Norfolk Mental Health Advocacy Service, by Julian Support, by Stonham, by the Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People or by Independent Living Norfolk. Page 1 of 6

2 2. Procedure 2.1 Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind uses the following complaints procedure, which is available to all In the first instance you should discuss your complaint with your normal contact at Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind. However, if the complaint refers to your contact, you can take it up orally at this stage with the Complaints Officer (see section 5 below) to find out the line manager to whom you need to address your complaint If your complaint is of a general nature, you should talk about your complaint in the first instance with the Complaints Officer (see section 5 below) If by following either or 2.1.2, no acceptable oral solution can be found, or if you feel unable to talk about your complaint with anyone within Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind, the complaint should be taken up in writing with the line manager responsible for the area to which the complaint refers. That line manager will inform the Complaints Officer of the details of the complaint and enter those details of the complaint into the Organisation Complaint Log (See Appendices 2) and onto the Central Complaint Log (see Appendix 1). The line manager will then investigate the complaint and will aim to provide a full written response and, if appropriate, a proposed resolution, to the complainant within 14 days. Again, you may make contact with the Complaints Officer (see section 5 below) to find out the line manager to whom you need to address your complaint. Page 2 of 6

3 2.1.4 If at this stage no acceptable solution has been found, or if you feel unable to send your complaint to the line manager responsible for the area to which the complaint refers, then you can send a written complaint to the Chief Executive Officer at our Head Office address The Chief Executive Officer will investigate the complaint and aim to provide a full written response and, if appropriate, a proposed resolution to the complainant, within 14 days This is the final stage of the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind internal Complaints Procedure. If proposed resolution is unacceptable we can direct you to independent support. 3. Monitoring and training 3.1 Using information taken from the Complaints Logs, the Complaints Officer will report on levels, nature and resolution to complaints quarterly to the Board of Trustees. Where appropriate, the Complaints Officer will also report on any changes made as a result of investigating and resolving the complaints. 3.2 The Complaints Officer will conduct an annual awareness audit to see if this procedure has been advertised effectively, and also to ask if there are any changes that could be made to prevent barriers to complaints being raised. The results of this audit will be published in the organisation s annual report. 3.3 The Complaints Officer arranges annual training for Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind staff members in dealing with and encouraging complaints. This training also sets out to encourage staff throughout the organisation to view Page 3 of 6

4 complaints as a means by which positive change may be brought about. 4. Other Forms of Complaint 4.1 In the case of complaint by a member of staff, they should refer to the Grievance Policy contained within the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind staff handbook, which details the actions that they could take. 4.2 Staff and volunteers should refer to the Whistle-Blowing Policy contained within the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Mind staff handbook for guidance for revealing information with the intention of identifying abusive or poor practice or illegal activity. 5. Complaints Officer 5.1 The current Complaints Officer is Operational Manager You can contact them by telephone on You can contact them in writing at; Deneside Great Yarmouth NR30 3AX You can them at; stuart.bennett@gywmind.org.uk Appendices: Appendix 1: Central Complaint Log Appendix 2: Organisation Complaint Log Page 4 of 6

5 Appendix 1 Central Complaint Log Page 5 of 6

6 Appendix 2 Organisation Complaint Log Page 6 of 6