Complaints Policy

1. Purpose 

This policy sets out Pride In Health’s commitment to handling complaints in a fair, transparent, and responsive manner. It ensures that clients, carers, and service users have a clear and accessible way to express concerns and that the organisation continuously learns and improves from the feedback received.

2. Policy Statement and Aims 

Pride In Health is committed to:

• Providing clients and service users with a clear process to raise complaints
• Ensuring all complaints are handled impartially and without fear of retribution
• Promoting transparency, accountability, and service improvement
• Using complaints as an opportunity for reflective practice and service development
• Ensuring complaints are handled in a person-centred way, with respect for dignity, privacy, identity, and freedom from discrimination.

3. Scope 

This policy applies to all complaints raised by:

• Clients and carers accessing Pride In Health services
• Independent clinicians or consultants contracted by the organisation
• Volunteers and staff involved in service delivery

4. Definitions 

• Complaint: An expression of dissatisfaction about our service, administration, communication, or clinical care (including dignity, privacy, identity, and discrimination concerns) where the person is asking Pride In Health to treat it as a formal complaint.
• Complainant: The individual raising the complaint, or an authorised representative (where appropriate consent applies).

5. Guiding Principles 

• Fairness: All complaints are treated impartially and with respect
• Clarity: Clients are informed of the process and their rights
• Confidentiality: Complaint details are shared only with those involved in resolution
• Support and accessibility: Clients are supported throughout the complaints process, including reasonable adjustments
• Learning: Feedback from complaints informs service improvements, training, and governance
• No disadvantage: People will not be treated differently for raising a complaint. Where behaviour becomes abusive or threatening, we may set proportionate boundaries to protect staff and maintain a safe service. 

6. Roles and Responsibilities 

• Leadership Team: Oversees complaints policy implementation, reviews themes and learning, and considers serious or escalated complaints.
• Complaints Lead (Quality Assurance role): Coordinates and manages the complaints process, ensures timescales are met, maintains accurate records, and ensures learning and improvements are captured.
• Investigating Lead: For each complaint, Pride In Health will appoint an Investigating Lead, normally the Operations or Quality Assurance Lead. As a small organisation, we may not always be able to appoint a fully independent investigator. We will instead manage conflicts of interest and ensure the investigation is impartial by:
  • appointing an investigator who was not directly involved in the matter being complained about wherever possible
  • escalating the investigation to another senior role (for example Operations Lead or Founder) if the Complaints Lead is implicated or there is a perceived conflict
  • involving appropriate clinical input for clinical complaints, where needed, to ensure conclusions are evidence-based and proportionate 
  • documenting any conflict of interest considerations and mitigation steps in the complaint record
• Post-investigation review (internal): If a complainant asks for a review of our handling or decision, a senior team member who was not involved in the initial investigation will conduct that review where possible. 
• Staff and Contractors: Responsible for cooperating with investigations, providing requested information in a timely manner, and supporting a culture of openness and respect.

7. Accessibility and Equity 

We ensure that the complaints process is accessible to all. Reasonable support will be provided to anyone who may need assistance in making a complaint due to language, disability, digital access needs, or other barriers.

Clients can raise a complaint in the following ways:

• Via our online “Share a Concern or Make a Complaint” form (linked in staff email signatures and provided on request)
• By email to: services@prideinhealth.co.uk 
• In another format if required, with support from the team
  
  

Anonymous complaints: We will review anonymous complaints and act on them where possible, but we may be limited in what we can investigate or update without contact details.

8. Timescales and handling approach

We aim to respond promptly and keep complainants updated. HIS sets benchmarks for acknowledgement, assessment, and written response timescales, which we mirror for good practice.
 

Pride In Health will:

• Acknowledge a complaint within 2 working days of receipt (and no later than 3 working days) 
• Triage and assess the complaint within 5 working days of receipt (including confirming whether it is service/admin, clinical care, or both) 
• Provide a written response within 20 working days of receipt 
• If we need more time, we will explain why and provide a revised timescale. In exceptional circumstances, an extension of up to 10 additional working days may be agreed where justified. 
  

Where appropriate, we may offer a call or meeting to clarify issues and agree the complaint points to be investigated, as this can support resolution.

9. Confidentiality and record keeping

All complaint-related information is managed in accordance with data protection regulations. Only those directly involved in resolving the complaint will have access to the information.

We will:

• Record complaints in our complaints tracker (with restricted access for complaints and governance roles)
• Retain relevant correspondence and evidence in line with our retention approach and data protection requirements
• Separate or restrict access further where a complaint includes particularly sensitive information

10. Continuous Improvement, Monitoring and Review

Themes and learning from complaints are reviewed monthly by the leadership team and contribute to service development, staff training, and quality assurance.

This policy is reviewed annually or sooner if regulations or HIS guidance changes, inspection feedback requires updates, or patterns of unresolved complaints are identified.

11. External escalation, ADR, and regulator contact (HIS requirement)

If we cannot resolve a complaint internally, we will explain the remaining options clearly, including whether any Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme is available. 

While it can be helpful to register your complaint through our complaints process first, service users can contact Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) at any time during the complaints process, including without completing our internal process first.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (Independent Healthcare Team)
Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9EB
Telephone: 0131 623 4342 
Email: his.ihcregulation@nhs.scot