Anyone using the Togetherall service has the right to make a complaint to us or against us. This includes visitors to our website, members of our Platform, carers or a person acting on behalf of our members, or commissioners or partners. We commit to:
Here at Togetherall, we support the Duty of Candor, which means we will always strive to be open, honest and transparent. We actively encourage our staff to be truthful in their dealings with members if and when things go wrong. We want all incidents and complaints to be investigated and to learn from this process.
Where a complaint is as a result of harm or serious risk caused by us, we will use our incident process and provide information about what happened and what we will do about the issue. This is in line with Duty of Candor principles.
We place governance at the top of our agenda: for the delivery of a high-quality service for all our commissioned services and for ourselves internally. We believe that good governance fosters inward-facing scrutiny, honesty and transparency. We support whistleblowing and want to know if things are not quite right so that we can fix them.
We believe that our service users expect and deserve for Togetherall to be honest, open and truthful in all our dealings with them. We have put in place simple and age appropriate systems and processes to enable this. To respond to your complaint we follow a two stage process.
We review complaints every three months in a meeting about quality, safety and performance. This helps us spot patterns and improve our services. We also hold regular Clinical Meetings to discuss member issues and supervision reports.
A complaint is any instance of dissatisfaction raised by a visitor to our website, member of our Platform, carer or a person acting on behalf of a Togetherall member, or commissioner or partner. A complaint will normally be made in writing by email to complaints@togetherall.com or via our Contact Us form. We will make reasonable adjustments to the ways you can complain if it helps you to raise a complaint. Togetherall may refuse to process manifestly unfounded complaints.
If you are making a complaint on behalf of a Togetherall member, we must be satisfied that you have sufficient interest in their welfare, are a suitable person to act as their representative, and are acting in their best interests. We may ask for further information to help us make this assessment. If we are not satisfied on any of these points, we will write to you explaining our reasons and may refuse to process the matter as a complaint.
If you would like to make a complaint you, or someone acting on your behalf can contact the Togetherall team at complaints@togetherall.com. Complaints should be made ideally no later than 12 months after the date on which the matter occurred, or no later than 12 months after the date on which the matter came to the notice of the complainant. Where a complaint falls outside of these timescales, the timescales may be waived if Togetherall feels that there are good reasons for not making the complaint sooner.
If your complaint relates to the accessibility our site or services for people with disabilities, it would help us if you could provide the information advised in ‘Contacting Organisations about Inaccessible Websites’ in your request. All constructive feedback regarding the accessibility of our site and services is welcome and will be carefully considered.
Togetherall will acknowledge all complaints within one working day. Togetherall will carry out an investigation into the complaint and gather information from Togetherall staff as appropriate. A member of Togetherall may ask the sender of the complaint to provide further information for clarification. In the first instance, the complaint will be investigated by a Senior Manager, who will review and approve a response on behalf of Togetherall.
If the complainant remains dissatisfied after receiving this response they can escalate the matter to the a more Senior Manager of Togetherall, who will consider the complaint and response and make a further final response for Togetherall. Copies of all complaints and their resolutions will be kept on record and in line with data and privacy laws.
If you have used both stages of the complaints processes with Togetherall and you are not satisfied with the final outcome, you may be able to escalate the complaint externally. For example, depending on your Togetherall access route there may be an ombuds / ombudsman service, health department, commissioner or other external service that you can escalate your complaint to. Depending on the nature of your complaint there may also be a regulatory body that you can complain to, for example a privacy, health and disability commissioner.
Members may express unhappiness with Togetherall via a brick or in a talk about. This will not be treated as a formal complaint but may prompt a response from a Wall Guide as part of on-going monitoring of Platform activity.
There may be occasions when members have reason to complain about the activity of another member of the community. The process for complaint in these incidences are fully covered within Togetherall House rules. On any occasion when such a complaint is notified to Togetherall it will be investigated as set out above. All complaints about activity on the Platform and other community members will be conducted maintaining anonymity of all members. A complaint will not prompt Togetherall to break with its commitment to maintain anonymity of all members of the community. If you wish to submit a complaint to Togetherall, please email complaints@togetherall.com.
