How we can help

Most of the time people have no reason to complain about public services. But when things do go wrong, it can be difficult to know how to go about making a complaint in the first instance and who to turn to next if you’re not happy with the outcome. We’re here to help resolve complaints when attempts to deal with them locally have failed.

We want to reach more people who have a complaint that we might be able to help with, and MPs, advice organisations and support groups can help us with this.

We realise it’s not always easy for advisers to know which complaints to pass on to us and when. We hope the key facts below will help, but if you’re in any doubt about whether to refer a particular complaint to us or would simply like some more information about our work, please contact us. Call our main helpline on 0345 015 4033 or our MP helpline on 0300 061 4953, and we’ll be happy to help. You will also find useful resources on our website, including leaflets and forms for making a complaint.

We want to reach more people who have a complaint that we might be able to help with, and MPs, advice organisations and support groups can help us with this.

10 key facts about us

  1. Our experience and research tells us that when something goes wrong, the public want to know what happened, they want an apology and they want to prevent the same problem happening to others. We can help them with this.
  2. We investigate complaints about the NHS in England, UK government departments and other central government organisations.
  3. We were set up by Parliament and our powers are set down in law.
  4. We are a completely independent organisation; we undertake impartial investigations and make impartial decisions.
  5. The range of organisations and the issues we can look into is vast: from complaints about GPs striking people off their practice lists, to problems with benefits and tax credits, we help people at all stages of their lives and in all kinds of situations.
  6. It’s right that complaints get resolved locally wherever possible, so we usually ask that people come to us after they’ve complained to the organisation they’re unhappy with and have had a final response from them.
  7. There are time limits for bringing complaints to us, so it’s important for people to get in touch as soon as possible once they’ve exhausted the organisation’s own complaints process.
  8. Complaints about government departments and other central government organisations need to be passed on to us by an MP (this isn’t the case for complaints about the NHS, which anyone can bring to us direct).
  9. Our investigations result in positive outcomes for people: proper explanations, apologies, compensation payments or other action by the organisation. We can also ask organisations to tell us how they plan to prevent the same mistakes being repeated for other service users.
  10. We will be regularly publishing information about the individual complaints we see and any trends we’re spotting, so that all public service providers can take stock and consider what lessons they can learn from them.