Adult Social Care Complaints Policy 2025 to 2026

At Stockport Council, we always aim to provide a high standard of care in all our services.
Our customers’ views are important to us and help to ensure our services are consistently meeting people’s needs. We need our customers to tell us what is not working and what is working well.

We acknowledge that there may be occasions when our service does not meet your expectations, or we don’t get things right. In such instances, we are committed to addressing any concerns you may have. Should you wish to make a complaint regarding our service, please contact us directly so we can endeavour to resolve the matter promptly and in an informal manner.

We aim to be flexible and responsive in our approach to complaint handling and:

• to put things right
• keep people at the heart of all we do
• to be open and accountable
• to act fairly and proportionately
• learn from mistakes and put things right
• to comply with the statutory requirements of the council

This procedure sets out how we will work with you to respond to your complaint in line with the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations which came into effect in April 2009. The law provides a single complaints process for people who are receiving services from both the Local Authority Adult Social Care Department and the National Health Service (NHS). Our aim is to resolve your complaint and put things right, so you’re in the same position you would have been in if the issue hadn’t occurred.

Council Complaints Service

The Council Complaints Service is the point of contact for anyone wishing to make a complaint. The team oversees all complaints and provides advice and information to complainants and members of staff and records all complaints made to the council. It provides support to Investigating Officers and monitors the progress of complaint investigations. Learning from complaints is very important to us and the team uses the information it collects about complaints to identify any topics and trends to help improve services. The Complaint Service is also the central point of contact for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

We also use our complaints process to support people who wish to appeal the outcome of their Care Act assessment or Care Act review. The process will support people to understand the decision-making process and ensure we have taken into account all the information presented as part of our agreed outcome.

Making a complaint

What is a complaint?

We aim to handle complaints quickly, effectively and in a fair and honest way. We take all complaints seriously and use valuable information from investigating to help us improve the service we provide.

A complaint is when you’re unhappy with something we’ve done, not done, or decided, and you’d like us to respond.

If you need help to make complaint, just let us know – we’re here to support you.
You can make a complaint by:

• telephone: 0161 474 4599
• email: ASC.complaints@stockport.gov.uk
• writing: Council Complaints Service, Stockport Council, Stopford House, Stockport, SK1 3XE

Who can complain?

You can use this process to make a complaint if you get support from Adult Social Care, or if something we’ve done - or not done – has affected you. You can also make a complaint on someone else’s behalf.

If you make a complaint on behalf of another person, we need that person’s consent. If we receive such a complaint without consent, we will contact you and advise you of the need to get the person’s consent. We may contact the person to confirm they consent and that they agree with the content of the complaint. If you are unable to obtain consent, we are unlikely to investigate the complaint. If your complaint raises concerns about someone’s safety or wellbeing, we may treat it as a safeguarding referral. We will always explain our decision and what is going to happen.

If you are making a complaint on behalf of someone who does not have capacity as defined by the Mental Capacity Act the complaint will only be considered if you have Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) or are acting in that person’s best interest. If we have reason to believe you are not acting in that person’s best interest, we will not consider the complaint and inform you of the reason for our decision. In such cases you have the right to refer the complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Advocacy

If you need some help to make your complaint, we can arrange for an advocate who will speak on your behalf.

Anonymous complaints

If you make an anonymous complaint, we will investigate the matter but we will not be able to provide you with a response. If you do not want to give your name because you are worried that it might affect the service you receive, please be assured this will not be the case. Following an investigation into an anonymous complaint the Investigating Officer will decide what, if any, actions should be taken as a result of the investigation.

Non-qualifying complaints

Some complaints involve matters which are more appropriately dealt with under other council procedures or are outside of the council’s jurisdiction. In these cases, we will let you know which elements of your complaint, if any, we can look at and under which procedure we will investigate the matter. Examples include but are not limited to HR, grievances and legal matters.

Staff behaviour and attitude

If your complaint is about the attitude or behaviour of a member of a staff it may be appropriate to investigate the matter under the council’s employment procedures.

Where this is the case, we will let you know how we will deal with the matter, however, due to the confidential nature of employer-employee relations we will not be able to provide you with details of the outcome.

Mental Capacity Act

Under the Mental Capacity Act health or social care professionals can assess a person as lacking capacity and make decisions or carry out actions on behalf of that person. When we make such a decision you cannot challenge it using this procedure. Guidance on how you can challenge decisions made under the Mental Capacity Act is included in the Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice which is available from the Department of Health. If you feel that there has been a fault in the decision-making process it may be appropriate for you to use the complaints procedure, however there may be other resolution options available. You should discuss these with the relevant team manager. Although a best interest decision cannot be overturned through the complaint procedure, if it is found that there was a fault in the decision-making process a re-assessment may be carried out.

Time limit

You should complain as soon as you can after the date on which the event occurred or came to your notice. We will not usually investigate your complaint if 12 months have passed since the date you learned that something went wrong.

There is discretion to consider a complaint outside this timescale where it would be unreasonable for the complaint to have been made earlier and whether, despite the delay, it is still possible to investigate the complaint effectively and fairly.

If we decide not to investigate a complaint, the complainant will be informed in writing and an explanation will be provided.

Other non-qualifying complaints

The following types of complaints do not qualify to be dealt with under this procedure:

• a complaint about matters which have been fully dealt with under this or other appropriate procedures
• a complaint by an employee about any matter relating to their employment
• a complaint which is made orally and is resolved no later than the next working day
• a complaint about matters which are, or have been, investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or the Health Service Ombudsman
• a complaint about matters decided by a Court

Legal proceedings

You cannot use this complaints procedure to challenge decisions of a Court. Where it is intended that there will be, or there are, ongoing legal proceedings in relation to your complaint we may investigate the matter unless we feel it could prejudice the legal action. If we decide not to investigate your complaint, we will contact you to inform you of this. We may investigate your complaint after the legal proceedings have finished.

Social Care provider complaints arranged by the local authority

If we assess your needs and arrange services to meet them, you can make a complaint to us even if you pay for the service.

You should make a complaint directly to the organisation providing the service first. If your complaint is about both the standard of care provided by the provider organisation and the service provided by us, for example your assessment, we will contact you to let you know which part of the complaint will be handled by us and ask for your consent to forward the other elements of your complaint to the organisation providing the service. In such cases we will work with the organisation and provide you with one response covering all the issues raised where possible.

Private arrangements

If you have arranged and pay for your own care we will not be able to investigate your complaint about the service provided. Since October 2010 complaints made by people who arrange and pay for their own social care came under the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Safeguarding

If your complaint involves concerns about your own or someone else’s safety, we will make an adult and/or child protection referral and follow the Authority’s Safeguarding Policies and Procedures. Where possible we will carry out a complaint’s investigation at the same time.

Joint Health and Social Care complaints

The Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 place a duty on local authorities and the NHS to work together when considering complaints about services provide jointly.

Accessibility and equal opportunities

Stockport Council is committed to ensuring that all service users of any age, background, community or with any disability are enabled to have equal access to information and services.
To help make sure our complaints procedure is easily accessible we:

• use plain language
• accept complaints over the phone or in person, in writing, by email and via our website
• provide information and responses in Braille, large print, audio, easy read format and other languages where needed
• provide translators (including sign language translators) where needed

The complaints process

Adult Social Care complaints are investigated under a one stage process.

You can make an Adult Social Care complaint to any member of staff within the council. Whoever receives your complaint should forward it to the Council Complaint Service, who will work with you to complete a Statement of complaint. The Complaints Manager will decide whether or not your complaint should be dealt with under this procedure, or the council's corporate complaint process, and this will be included in your acknowledgement.

How long will it take?

20 working days up to a maximum of six months. While the regulations allow a maximum of six months to investigate a complaint, we will try to respond to your complaint within 20 working days. If it is not going to be possible to investigate your complaint within 20 working days, the Investigating Officer will contact you and explain the reason why.

We may need to extend the timescale for response where people are unavailable due to sickness absence, annual leave, or other commitments or where we are waiting for an advocate or translator to be appointed.

Joint investigations

Sometimes Adult Social Care complaints will involve other organisations, predominantly health services. The time needed to complete a joint investigation will vary according to the number of issues raised and the number of services involved. For each joint investigation complaints managers from the different organisations will work together.

Who will investigate your complaint?

We will decide on a ‘case-by-case’ basis who will be best to investigate your complaint. This person will be referred to as the ‘Investigating Officer’. Once the Investigating Officer has looked into the matter, they will write up their findings and share them with you and what the council intends to do to put things right. They will also let you know what to do should you remain dissatisfied.

Putting things right

When you make a complaint, we will ask you what you would like us to do to put things right. We will take your views into account, but it may not always be possible to give you exactly what you want. Where this is the case, we will discuss the matter with you and come to an agreement. If we uphold or partly uphold your complaint you can expect an apology and for us to put things right quickly. We may also propose a number of other actions. The aim of these actions is to put you back in the position you were in before the problem occurred and make amends for any loss you may have suffered as a result.

Learning

An important part of the complaints process is to ensure learning is identified and appropriate action is taken to ensure repeat incidents do not occur. This approach to learning is essential for continuous service improvement and we aim to learn from each individual case. The Complaints Service regularly meets with Adult Social Care to ensure opportunities for wider learning is shared with senior managers and where necessary, action plans will be established and monitored for compliance.

Referring your complaint to the Ombudsman

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint you have the right to refer your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care or Health Service Ombudsman at any time. However, the Ombudsman is unlikely to consider your complaint unless we have investigated it fully under the Adult Social Care Complaints Procedure.

The contact details are:

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH

Telephone: 0300 061 0614
Text: 0762 480 3014

There is more information available on the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website.

Public information

We will provide information on how to make a complaint on our website.

We will also make leaflets available in all council buildings and include a leaflet in the information pack given to service users and carers at their assessment.

Unreasonable and unreasonably persistent complainants

We do not normally limit contact with our offices. However, if complainants display unreasonable behaviour, for example, offensive or threatening behaviour towards staff we may take action to limit their contact. Similarly, if you are unreasonably persistent for example, you contact our offices so many times that it hinders our handling of your complaint, we may take action to limit your contact. In these cases, we will follow the council’s Unreasonable Behaviour Policy.