Social Care Complaints Advocacy

These are some of the things that you might want to complain about:

• The attitude or behaviour of staff

• A care plan, an assessment or review

• Decisions that you do not agree with

If you decide to make a complaint, you should do so within 12 months of the incident you are complaining about. Or within 12 months of you realising how what happened has affected you.

In certain circumstances the local authority will sometimes look at complaints that are outside of these timescales, but they do not have to do so.

If you would like to make the complaint yourself, or have started the process already, we've put together some useful guides in our self help information pages.

Advocacy support

If you live in Bristol City, Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly, an advocate can support you to make a complaint. In Bristol, we will pass your referral to The Care Forum.

An advocate will:

• take time to understand your situation

• help you decide what you want to achieve by making a complaint

• help you understand the complaints process

• explore your options at every stage of the complaint

• help you decide what you want to do and how you want to do it

• act on your direction if you don’t feel able to take action yourself

• help you write letters to the right people

• go with you to a meeting to discuss your complaint.

An advocate won’t:

• investigate your complaint

• make any decisions for or about you

• tell you what to do or give advice.