Inflammatory Arthritis UK Complaints Policy
1. Complaints Policy Statement
Inflammatory Arthritis UK:
- is committed to providing a high standard of quality services to service users, other agencies, and organisations.
- will take seriously any concern or complaint and will investigate it promptly, aiming for resolution as quickly as possible.
- recognises that all service users, agencies, and organisations:
- have the right to raise concerns or complaints about our services.
- have access to clear information on how to voice complaints and concerns.
- concerns and complaints procedure are open to everyone who receives or requests a service from Inflammatory Arthritis UK and people acting on their behalf.
- will deal with complaints promptly, politely and where appropriate, confidential.
- will keep a register of all complaints, which will be reviewed regularly by the Board of Trustees.
- complaints procedure will be part of the process of monitoring the quality, effectiveness, and non-discriminatory nature of its services.
- All, volunteers, and Board of Trustees members are required to read, understand, and comply with this policy and its procedures.
2. Introduction
2.1
Inflammatory Arthritis UK strives for high standards in service delivery and welcomes feedback from individuals, users of our services, stakeholders, funding bodies, and anyone who works with us on all aspects of our services. Such feedback is invaluable in helping us evaluate and improve our work.
2.2
The objectives of Inflammatory Arthritis UK’s complaints policy and procedures are to:
- Ensure everyone knows how to make a complaint and how a complaint will be handled.
- Ensure that complaints are dealt with consistently, fairly, and sensitively within clear timeframes.
- Provide individuals with a fair and effective way to complain about our work.
- Ensure that complaints are monitored to improve our services.
2.3
Inflammatory Arthritis UK will ensure that we:
- Listen carefully to complaints and treat complaints as confidential, where possible.
- Record, store, and manage all complaints accurately and in accordance with the Data Protection Act.
- Investigate the complaint fully, objectively, and within the stated timeframe.
- Notify the complainant of the results of the investigation and any right of appeal.
- Inform the complainant of any action that will be implemented to ensure that there is no recurrence.
- Report on an annual basis, the number of complaints received, the outcomes, and any actions taken.
3. Definition of a Complaint
3.1
A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction by an individual, whether justified or not.
3.2
An individual may make a complaint if they feel Inflammatory Arthritis UK has:
- Failed to provide a service or an acceptable standard of service or made a mistake in the way the service was provided.
- Failed to act in a proper way.
- Provided an unfair service.
3.3
This policy and procedure relate only to complaints received about Inflammatory Arthritis UK and its services.
4. Concern or Complaint
4.1
It is important to establish the difference between a concern and a complaint. Taking informal concerns seriously at the earliest stage will reduce the likelihood of their developing into formal complaints.
4.2
If you have any concerns about our work, please email info@inflammatoryarthritis.org with the following information:
- Complainant’s name and contact details, unless they are unwilling to provide these.
- The nature of their concern and anything that they wished to be done about it.
We will seek to revolve this and meet any reasonable expectations the individual may have, ideally to their satisfaction.
4.3
If you are not happy with the response to your concern and/or you want to make a formal complaint, please follow the procedure below.
5. Complaints Procedure
5.1
Where an individual wishes to make a formal complaint, they will be provided with the email address of the nominated lead trustee for complaints. Correspondence should be marked “private and confidential”. They should be provided with a copy of this policy by email.
5.2
There are three stages to the complaint’s procedure:
- Stage One – the complaint
- Stage Two – investigation
- Stage Three – appeal
6. Stage One – Complaint
6.1
To help resolve the complaint as quickly and effectively as possible, the individual making the complaint should do so as soon as possible and should include in it:
- Name, organisation (if relevant), address, telephone number and email.
- If you do not wish to be contacted in a particular way, please let us know and we will of course respect this.
- As much information as possible, such as what happened, where, when (date/time), who was present and any action taken, and by whom.
- What it is you felt to be unsatisfactory. email
- What you believe should be done to address your concern.
Receipt will be acknowledged, if possible, within ten working days.
7. Stage Two – Investigation
7.1
The complaint will then be investigated. If necessary, specialist advice will be sought. Where clarification or further information is felt to be necessary, the trustee will contact the person complaining to request this.
7.2
A response will be sent within 20 working days, from the date of the acknowledgement. If this is not possible, a holding reply will be sent after 14 days advising when we estimate the investigation will be completed. The complaint response will explain our findings and what action we will be taking/have taken, subject to the constraints of the Data Protection Act, which will almost certainly not allow us to disclose sensitive personal information.
7.3
The complainant will receive written confirmation of the outcome of any investigation and any recommendations/remedies made, such as reviewing of policies, staff development and training, or appropriate improvement to our services.
7.4
If an individual remains dissatisfied with the outcome from Stage Two, they can appeal within fourteen working days of the date of the outcome and progress to Stage Three.
8. Stage Three – Appeal
8.1
If the complainant is not satisfied with the response, he or she may appeal the decision, by writing to the Chair, the contact details of whom will be included in our response. Appeals must be submitted within 28 days of our response to the complaint. The appeal should be specific about why the individual feels the decision made was wrong and provide the facts and information necessary to demonstrate this.
8.2
A decision will be notified within 28 days and will be final.
8.3
The Trustee Board shall be informed by the Complaints Co-ordinator at the first available meeting of the number and nature of any formal complaints and their outcome, and consideration will be given to the implications these have for the planning and management of future IAUK work.
IAUK will keep a record of each complaint and outcomes for two years from the date of the complaint.
9. Wider Action
9.1
Irrespective of the outcome of any complaint, we will consider if there is any requirement in respect of wider action and/or statutory reporting to the Charity Commission, other regulator, or the Police.
9.2
Consideration will also to be given to whether any changes should be made to policies, procedures, training etc to see if anything might reasonably be done to prevent a similar issue arising in future.
Complaints about our fundraising activities:
Fundraising Regulator
2nd floor
CAN Mezzanine Building
49-51 East Road
London, N1 6AH
enquiries@fundraisingregulator.org.uk or Tel: 0300 999 3407
10. Anonymous Complaints
10.1
Anonymous complaints will be recorded and any facts available looked in to. However, in doing so we will be mindful that anonymous complaints can sometimes be malicious.
Everyone involved in our work, even incidentally, has a right to complain and we will hold anyone accountable but, equally, individuals have a right to be protected from unsubstantiated and, potentially, malicious allegations.
Consequently, anyone wishing to complain is strongly encouraged to provide the information requested above and their contact details. This will also allow us to advise them of the outcome.
11. Situations where we may not respond to a complaint
11.1
On very rare occasions we may choose not to respond to a complaint. These include:
- When a complaint is about something that we have no direct connection to. We may choose to reply to clear our name, but we are not obliged to.
- When someone unreasonably pursues a complaint that we have already responded to. We will escalate in line with this policy, but we may choose not to reply again – we will always inform the complainant of our decision to do this.
- When a complainant is being abusive, prejudiced or offensive in their manner.
- When a complainant demonstrates harassing behaviour.
- When a complaint is incoherent or illegible.
- When a complaint has clearly been sent to us and numerous other organisations as part of a bulk mailing or email. In this instance we can chose whether it is necessary for us to reply or not.
- When a complaint is made anonymously, we cannot respond to the complainant, but we will investigate the complaint and use the information to improve in any way that we can.
12. Confidentiality
12.1
The complaint will be treated as confidential and any communication on this issue, including responding to the complainant, will be subject to compliance with the Data Protection Act.
Approved by Board: February 2025
Review: February 2026
