Making a Complaint

MHA is committed to dealing effectively and efficiently with any complaints you may have about our service.

We recognise that complaints are an inevitable part of any business and are also a valuable form of feedback which can inform improvements to service performance.

If we get something wrong, we welcome the opportunity to apologise and put things right.

If you are approaching us for a service for the first time, (e.g. reporting a general repair), you should first give us a chance to respond to your request.

If you make a request for a service and are not happy with our response, you will be able to make a complaint. A complaint is defined as “an expression of dissatisfaction by anyone, about any aspect of the service we have committed to and not provided”.

If you wish, you can ask somebody to make the complaint on your behalf.

If possible, we believe it’s best to deal with things straight away rather than try to sort them out later.

Should you have a concern, please raise it with the person you’re dealing with. He or she will try to resolve it for you there and then. However, if it requires an investigation, we will aim to fully investigate it within 10 working days.

If we have tried to resolve your complaint informally and you are dissatisfied with the outcome, then you may request a formal investigation.

We will deal with your complaint in an open and honest way and make sure that your dealings with us in the future do not suffer just because you have made a complaint.

If you request a formal investigation, we will:

• Contact you within 2 working days to discuss your complaint and talk you through the process.
• We will assign an investigating officer who will be your main point of contact and write to you formally with their contact details.
• They will then contact you to introduce themselves and to discuss your complaint.
• We will aim to resolve complaint as quickly as possible and expect to deal with the vast majority within 20 working days. If it is more complex and may take more time, the Investigating Officer will contact you to discuss this and agree an amended timescale with you.
• We will let you know what we have found and if we find that we got it wrong, we’ll tell you what happened and why and aim to put it right. If we got it wrong, we will always apologise.

Once we have exhausted our internal complaints procedure, if you are still not happy with the outcome, you can refer your complaint to The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

The Ombudsman is an independent government body who will look into your complaint if you believe that you personally, or the person on whose behalf you are complaining:

• Have been treated unfairly or received a bad service through some failure on the part of the body providing it.
• Have been disadvantaged personally by a service failure or have been treated unfairly.

The Ombudsman expects you to bring your concerns to our attention first and to give us a chance to put things right.

You can contact the Ombudsman by:

Phone: 0300 790 0203

E-mail: ask@ombudsman-wales.org.uk

Website: www.ombudsmanwales.org.uk

Writing to: Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, 1 Ffordd yr Hen Gae, Pencoed, CF35 5LJ

There are also other organisations that consider complaints. There are also other organisations that consider complaints. For example, the Welsh Language Board about services in Welsh. We can advise you about such organisations.