Comments, complaints and feedback

Independent Lives works to ensure that our services are the best that they can be. As a part of that we take comments, complaints and feedback seriously. We are keen to hear the views of the people who use our services or are affected by them.

Any comment, good or bad, helps us to understand what people do and don’t like about our services and how we can make them better in the future.

If you have any comments or feedback about the work we do you can let us know by speaking to any member of staff, whether in person or over the phone. You can also email or write to us.

You can find our contact details below.

Phone – 01903 219482

Email – info@independentlives.org

Write to us

Independent Lives
Southfield House
11 Liverpool Gardens
Worthing
West Sussex
BN11 1RY

Complaints

We recognise that sometimes things don’t go to plan, and you may be dissatisfied with the service you receive. In these instances, we are always keen to understand what has gone wrong, not just so that we can make things right for you, but so that we can ensure that we learn from mistakes and make improvements to our services accordingly.

If you are unhappy with an aspect of our service, then please don’t hesitate to let us know. You can speak to any member of staff or contact us via any of the methods listed above.

How Independent Lives will deal with a complaint

• We will let you know that we have received your complaint and let you know what will happen next
• We will gather all the relevant information related to the complaint and investigate what might have gone wrong
• We will then get in touch with you to let you know the outcome of the complaint, our response and what action we will put in place to rectify any issues that may have occurred

Independent Lives aim to resolve all complaints within 15 working days. Occasionally more time may be required but we will always let you know if this is the case and keep you up to date on our progress.

What to do if you’re not happy with our response

Most complaints are resolved at this stage but if you find that you are unhappy with our response to your complaint then you may request that your complaint is looked at by the executive leadership team.

• We will pass the details of your complaint onto an appropriate member of the executive leadership team who will review the details of the complete, then investigation carried out and the response you received
• The executive leadership team may further investigate and may contact you to gather more information

Independent Lives to aim to resolve any escalation within 15 working days of your escalation request. Occasionally more time may be required but we will always let you know if this is the case and keep you up to date on our progress.

If you are still unhappy with the response, then you have the further right to escalate the complaint to either our chief executive or the chair of our board of trustees. Independent Lives aim to resolve any further investigation within 15 working days.

If you have exhausted our complete complaint procedure and are still unhappy then you may wish to seek third party information and advice. You can do this by contacting the Citizens Advice using the link below.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk