As the UK’s leading kidney patient support charity, Kidney Care UK aims to provide a high quality service, which meets your needs. We believe we achieve this most of the time but, if we are not getting it right, please let us know. We want to help resolve your complaint as quickly as possible.
We listen to your complaints, treat them seriously, and learn from them so that we can continuously improve our service for our beneficiaries. In order to ensure our services remain at a high but constantly improving standard, we have a procedure through which you can let us know if you are not satisfied with your dealings with the Charity.
If you are unhappy about any of Kidney Care UK’s services, please speak first to the relevant staff member with whom you have been liaising to try to resolve the matter informally. If you feel this is difficult or inappropriate, then please ask to speak to the staff member's manager or one of the Directors.
Making a written complaint
We have a three-stage complaints procedure. At each stage, it will help us resolve your complaint quickly if you can state formally that you are making a complaint and give us as much clarity and detail as possible, including any relevant documents and correspondence. Until we have received all the details required to investigate your complaint fully, we may not be able to start the investigation and might need to contact you to ask for further information.
All written complaints will be logged and acknowledged as soon as possible after receiving them and at most within five working days of receipt. Our aim is to investigate your complaint properly and promptly and tell you how we propose resolving the problem.
Stage 1
If you are not satisfied with our initial response or wish to raise the matter more formally, please write to Complaints, Kidney Care UK, 3 The Windmills, St Mary’s Close, Turk Street, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 1EF or email [email protected].
We will acknowledge receipt of the complaint within five working days. A manager or Director will investigate your complaint and respond within a further ten working days. We expect most complaints to be resolved at this stage.
Stage 2
If you are dissatisfied with our response at stage 1, you may write to the Chief Executive who will acknowledge receipt within five working days, review the complaint and the original investigation and respond to you within a further ten working days.
Stage 3
If you are still not satisfied with our response you may write to the Chair of the Board of Trustees as a final resort. In certain circumstances, this may be a senior Trustee designated by the Board. We will acknowledge receipt within five working days, complete a review of the adequacy and outcome of the previous investigations and send you a full response within a further ten working days.
Please note that in all cases the Chair’s, or senior, designated Trustee’s, response for complaints which reach Stage 3 will be final.
Our policy covers complaints about:
- The standard of service you should expect from us.
- The behaviour of our staff in delivering that service.
- Any action, or lack of action, by our staff or others engaged on the Charity’s business.
Our complaints policy does not cover:
- Matters that have already been fully investigated through this Complaints Procedure.
- Anonymous complaints.
Our standards for handling complaints
- We can receive complaints by letter or email. We treat all complaints seriously.
- You can expect to be treated with courtesy, respect and fairness at all times. We expect that you will also treat our staff dealing with your complaint with the same courtesy, respect and fairness.
- We will deal with your complaint promptly. In a few cases we will not be able to send a full reply within the timeframes detailed above if for example your complaint is very complex. If this happens, we will tell you the reason why and let you know when we will be able to reply in full, keeping you fully informed of progress.
Confidentiality
All complaints received will be dealt with confidentially and in accordance with the requirements of Data Protection law.
Remedies
When we get things wrong we will act to:
- Accept responsibility and, where appropriate, apologise.
- Explain what went wrong and why.
- Put things right by making any changes required.
- Learn lessons from mistakes and change policies and practices where proportionate and sensible.
- We record all complaints we receive and collate data from them to help us understand what types of problems are most prevalent, and how well we are doing to resolve them. In addition, the Board of Trustees is provided with details of each complaint. We value your feedback to help us to:
- Get things right in the future if we have not done so already.
- Be more answerable to our beneficiaries and those looking to us for support.
- Be open and accountable.
- Act fairly and proportionately.
- Continue to improve our services to you.
Contacting us
All complaints and requests for review under our Complaints Procedure should be sent clearly marked as a complaint as follows to:
By post: Complaints, Kidney Care UK, 3 The Windmills, St Mary’s Close, Turk Street, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 1EF.
By email: [email protected]
We usually only accept written complaints, but if, because of disability or for any other reason, you are unable to write to us, you may contact us as follows:
Telephone: 01420 541424
Last reviewed March 2022