Do you want to make a complaint?
A complaint is the name given to a process where something has happened that you are not happy with and you want to know why. You might also want something to be done to put it right or an apology if we can’t undo what was done.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received from SWAN, it is important that you let us know. You can do this by talking to the advocate who is working with you; they may be able to sort it out immediately. Or you can contact the Taunton office (details below) and talk to someone there who will make a note of your concern, and someone will get in touch to find out what’s happened.
We will investigate your concerns and do all we can to find out what happened and why, and if it shouldn’t have happened how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. We will need to talk to you to understand what took place; we might also need to talk to other people who have been involved.
Complaints are confidential and we won’t discuss your complaint with anyone else unless we think they can help us understand. We will tell you who we are going to talk to and if you don’t want us too, we won’t, but this might mean we can’t investigate the complaint properly. Making a complaint does not mean that you can’t use the advocacy service again in the future. We do keep a record of complaints so that we can inform our Board of Trustees and so that we can see if there is a pattern in the complaints we receive.
Sometimes complaints are made because people are not clear about what Advocates can and can’t do, if this is the case, we will do our best to explain it better and work out why we didn’t make it clearer in the first place.
We will deal with your complaint as quickly as we can and keep you informed about what we are doing, some issues take longer than others to investigate. When we have all the information we need, we will make a decision about what to do and let you know. We always try to resolve complaints and to ensure that you are happy with the result, but this isn’t always possible. If you are unhappy with our response and our findings you can appeal and we will then ask someone else to look at the complaint, the investigation and the result and see what they think. They will let you know the result. The complaints process will be considered closed 2 months after the appeal decision is made.
Complaints are an important way for us to learn and improve our services, and we know that it’s not always easy to complain so we will do our best to keep the process as simple as we can and support you the best we can. If you think you need support to make a complaint, we can try to help you to find someone to do this.
You can make a complaint by telephone, by email, by letter, in person to someone who works at SWAN or through our website.
Tel: 03333 447928
E-mail: complaints@swanadvocacy.org.uk
Website: www.swanadvocacy.org.uk.
South West Advocacy Network
Hi Point, Thomas Street,
Taunton, Somerset,
TA2 6HB
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