Complaints handling policy and procedure

How to make a complaint

What is a complaint

Complaints can range from an expression of dissatisfaction; to something that is the cause or subject of protest or outcry; to an allegation concerning the Foundation.

Complaints relating to fundraising or property management activities should be directed to the organisations carrying out those activities on our behalf. These are detailed below. Depending on the nature of the complaint, the Foundation may also decide to investigate. Some complaints may also be escalated to the Foundation following the conclusion of that organisation’s complaint process.

Complaints relating to handling of personal data should be made in accordance with the Foundation’s data privacy statement and raised with the Foundation’s Data Lead at info@gsttfoundation.org.uk.

If you have a concern or issue that you do not consider amounts to a complaint, as defined above, we still want to hear from you. Please discuss the matter informally with any member of the Foundation’s staff as soon as possible, so that this can be addressed at an early stage, or alternatively, you can share your views with us via our contact us form on our website.

This policy is not for use in relation to complaints from the Foundation’s staff (such as e.g. cases of bullying or harassment), which are dealt with by the Foundation’s internal Dignity at Work (Bullying and Harassment) policy or Whistleblowing policy, as appropriate.

In addition to reporting any complaints to the Foundation:

• if your complaint relates to actual or suspected criminal activity or raises a serious safeguarding concern which poses a threat to a person’s life or wellbeing, please report this to the police; or
• if it relates to actual or suspected fraudulent activity, this can be reported to ActionFraud at https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime or call 0300 123 2040.

How to get in touch about a complaint

If you would like to make a complaint, the best way to do this is by email. You can contact us at: complaints@gsttfoundation.org.uk.

Alternatively, if you would prefer to write to us, please address your complaint to:
Complaints Management (Private and Confidential)
Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation
46 Loman Street
London
SE1 0EH

If you cannot make your complaint in writing, you can reach us by phone on: 020 7089 4550.

Please note that we will accept complaints communicated by an advocate on your behalf, but we will need to hear from you directly in order for you to provide your express consent for the advocate to communicate on your behalf.

What details to include in your complaint

In order to help us to effectively investigate your complaint, please set out the facts in as much detail as you can, as clearly as possible. In particular, please tell us:

• what happened;
• when it happened;
• who you dealt with;
• why you consider this to be a complaint; and
• what you would like us to do to address your complaint.

Please be aware that we will keep your complaint and any information or document you disclose to us confidential. We will only disclose information internally or to our external advisors to the extent necessary to investigate your complaint effectively. Please see the your personal information section for more details.

What we will do with your complaint

We take complaints seriously and all complaints will be investigated. We will take action in response to any failures identified by the complaint or investigation, if applicable.

We aim to respond to your complaint within 10 business days of receiving it:

• If we have been able to resolve the complaint within that time, we shall include details of this and shall treat the matter as closed.
• If a complaint requires further investigation, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint and set out set who will be dealing with the complaint and their contact details (the “Complaint Lead”).

The Complaint Lead will investigate your complaint competently, diligently and as impartially as possible. They may need to speak to you further to gather such additional information as necessary in order to assess your complaint. They will consider the subject matter of the complaint, whether they consider the complaint should be upheld and, if so, what remedial action or redress the Foundation may consider appropriate. This may include a verbal apology, a written apology, a commitment to change, if appropriate, or in exceptional circumstances, financial compensation.

The Complaint Lead will usually advise you of their findings and the Foundation’s conclusion within 30 days of the acknowledgement of receipt of your complaint. If we are unable to give a definitive response within that timeframe, for example because an investigation has not been fully completed, we will send a progress report with an indication of when a full reply will be given.

Next steps

If you are not happy with our response, please let us know as soon as possible. Your complaint will be escalated to the Foundation’s Chief Executive (or the Foundation’s Chair, if the complaint relates to the Foundation’s Chief Executive), who will carry out a review and let you know the outcome within 30 days. The decision taken at this stage is final.

If you remain dissatisfied with our response, please refer to the Charity Commission’s guidance publication ‘CC47 Complaints About Charities’ to see if they will investigate your complaint further (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-charities) or contact them at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission; or in writing at: Charity Commission, PO Box 1227, Liverpool, L69 3UG

Complaints regarding fundraising

If your complaint is in relation to fundraising with one of our charities, please see our fundraising complaints policy.

• Evelina London Children’s Charity
• Guy’s Cancer Charity
• Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity

If you are not satisfied with our response to any complaints in relation to fundraising, you are entitled to take it to the Fundraising Regulator. Their contact details are:

• Email: complaints@fundraisingregulator.org.uk
• Address: Eagle House, 167 City Road London, EC1V 1AW
• Telephone: 0300 999 3407
• Website: Make a complaint | Fundraising Regulator

Complaints regarding funding

We work hard to ensure that the assessment of applications and management of funding is done in a fair and consistent way.

Please note that we will not usually consider complaints concerning decisions about whether to offer a grant or social investment, withdraw a grant or decline a grant or social investment application, including the amount of funding offered. We will only consider complaints where you feel maladministration has taken place – for example, we have failed to follow our published procedures in our application process.

If you do not feel that we have followed our applicable processes correctly or there has been mismanagement, please follow the complaint procedure at How to make a complaint, above.

Complaints about organisations funded by the Foundation

If your complaint relates to an organisation that has been funded by the Foundation (a “Funded Organisation”), please direct your complaint directly to that organisation to handle in accordance with its own complaints policy and procedure.

If you feel that the Funded Organisation has failed to follow its own complaints policy or procedure in the handling of your complaint or you have concerns about how your complaint was handled, you may refer this to the Foundation in accordance with the complaints procedure as outlined at How to make a complaint, above.

Complaints relating to property management

The Foundation contracts out its property management activities to an approved set of professional services firms (“Managing Agents”). These firms each have their own complaints policies which should be followed in the first instance, details of which are available on their own websites. Their respective procedures include escalation measures if you are unhappy with the outcome of their investigation into your complaint. If the Managing Agent is regulated by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), which will be evident from its website, you may be able to escalate your complaint to RICS for review. You can contact RICS by:

• Phone: 020 7695 1670
• Email: complaints@rics.org.

If you feel that the Managing Agent has failed to follow its own complaints policy or procedure in the handling of your complaint or you have concerns about how your complaint was handled, you may refer this to the Foundation, in accordance with the complaints procedure as outlined at How to make a complaint, above.

If you have a complaint relating to other property matters, please raise these directly with the Foundation in accordance with the complaints procedure as outlined at How to make a complaint, above.

Accessibility

Please contact us to discuss any specific communications needs you may have.

Your personal information

If you use our complaints policy and procedure, you are agreeing that we can use any personal information you send us for purposes connected with your complaint.

If you make a complaint to a Funded Organisation or a Managing Agent, which relates to the Foundation or work/activities funded by the Foundation, by doing so you are agreeing that they can share your concerns with us.

We can usually only investigate complaints where the identity of the complainant is known so that it is possible to go back and verify information if needed. When an anonymous complaint is received of a serious nature, the Foundation may consider investigating if there is enough information to guide further enquiries.

The Foundation’s internal record keeping requirements

The details of any complaint received by the Foundation (including name of complainant and details of the complaint) and the measures taken for its resolution will be logged in a complaints’ register which is maintained centrally by the Foundation’s Legal Director.

The Finance and Audit Committee of the Foundation will review a summary of complaints annually to establish whether there are any trends or patterns that the Foundation should be aware of, and for which an improvement is required. In addition, the pattern and trends of any complaints relating to Fundraising are reviewed quarterly by our Trust Engagement Committee.

Regulatory and legal bodies

The Foundation may decide or be required to pass a complaint onto regulatory or legal authorities (e.g. the Charity Commission or the police), for example, if there is a reasonable basis to suspect that an organisation or individual has acted illegally or if the Foundation considers the complaint amounts to a Serious Incident that should be reported to the Charity Commission.

Vexatious complaints

We recognise that the conclusion of our complaint handling may not always result in the outcome you hoped for. Once our complaints procedure has been exhausted, we will not consider further complaints on the same or substantially similar matter. Similarly, we will not consider any vexatious complaints.

A vexatious complaint is one which is deemed to be an inappropriate or improper use of this policy, and/or one which causes a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption or distress and/or is persistent, extending beyond the procedure outlined in this policy. We will consider all relevant circumstances in order to reach a balanced conclusion as to whether a complaint is vexatious.

Review date

This policy was last updated in November 2024.

This policy will be reviewed by the Board every three years. Date of next review: September 2027.