Educational Placement
If you are unhappy and would like to make a complaint about the educational placement that your child or young person attends, then you will need to follow their complaints procedure. This can be accessed on their website or by asking for a hard copy.
If after following each step of the complaints procedure you are still not satisfied with the placement’s response, then you can take the complaint higher:
Early Years – https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-childcare
Schools - https://contact.ofsted.gov.uk/online-complaints-schools
Independent Schools – https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-school/private-schools
Further Education - https://www.gov.uk/complain-further-education-apprenticeship
Health
Every health service will have their own complaints procedure, this information should be on their websites, available in their reception area/waiting room or by asking a member of staff for it. You can either complain to the service provider directly or to the body that pays for that NHS service, you can only complain to one, not both. Complaints can be made verbally or in writing and should normally be made within 12 months of the incident.
If you would like information, help or advice about how to complain to a health service the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) can support you to do this.
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/hospitals/what-is-pals-patient-advice-and-liaison-service/
Local Authority
If you are unhappy with a service provided by the Local Authority (LA) then you must complain to them directly. You could start by complaining to the Head of Service or Service/Team Manager, following this if you aren’t happy with the response you can complain to the LA ‘Compliments and Complaints’ service. The complaint should be made within a year of using the service you were dissatisfied with and you can make the complaint verbally, in person or in writing.
There are three stages to the complaints procedure with response times ranging from 15 days to 25 days, with some complicated complaints these response times may be longer. To complain to the LA follow the link below:
https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/what-we-do-and-how-we-work/have-your-say/compliments-and-complaints
If you are unhappy with the LA’s response to your complaint you can take the complaint higher to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). https://www.lgo.org.uk/