Introduction
Autism Oxford UK Limited (the organisation) is an organisation run for the following purpose:
To provide diagnostic assessment, training, clinical and education support to neurodivergent children, young people and adults alongside their families and the wider support network, by using our blended team of clinician’s, educational staff, and people with lived experience.
The organisation is based at:
C2 Grange Court,
Barton Lane,
Abingdon,
OX14 3NB
CQC Registered Manager: Kimberley Ashwin
CQC Nominated Individual: Kimberley Ashwin
Company Number: 09271647
Autism Oxford UK Limited values feedback. We view all types of feedback, including complaints, as an opportunity to learn.
This document outlines our commitment to dealing with complaints about the service provided by Autism Oxford UK Limited through a user lens. It also provides information about how we manage, respond to, and learn from complaints made about our services.
Autism Oxford UK Limited will treat complaints seriously and ensure that complaints, concerns, and issues raised by clients, relatives and carers are thoroughly investigated in an unbiased, non-judgmental, transparent, timely and appropriate manner. The outcome of any investigation, along with any resulting actions will be clearly explained to the person who has complained by the investigating organisation.
This policy will clearly set out the expectations that people can expect to receive when they raise a complaint.
We want to ensure that anyone making a complaint feels that they have received the appropriate support that they require during the complaint process
The organisation has adopted this Complaints, Comments and Feedback Policy and expects every adult working or helping the organisation to support it and comply with it. Consequently, this policy shall apply to all staff, leads, directors, volunteers, students or anyone working on behalf of the organisation.
Purpose of the policy
The purpose of this policy is to ensure that all staff, leads, volunteers, students, or anyone working on behalf of the company have a safe space to report back any concerns or praise to the company in a confidential manner.
At Autism Oxford UK Limited, we promote equality and freedom of speech in all areas of the company across all levels of staff and encourage engagement between staff and Leads.
Comments and Feedback
We are always keen to gain feedback from people using our services; good, bad and indifferent. We have feedback questionnaires which will be shared with you at the end of your involvement with us, however you can ask for a feedback form at any time, by emailing info@autismoxford.org.uk
Concerns and Complaints
At Autism Oxford UK Limited, we pride ourselves in providing a high-quality service to neurodivergent people and their support network. Unfortunately, we are human, and sometimes we do not get things quite right, or the service you have experienced has fallen short of the high standards you and we expect.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received, we first ask you to approach the staff member you have been liaising with and share your concerns. They will listen to your concerns and will respond to try and resolve these concerns.
If you are unhappy with the response we have been offered, we would ask you to make your concerns formal and place them in writing and address them to our Head of Governance at info@autismoxford.org.uk who will investigate your concerns in more detail. We call this a formal complaint. We aim to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and will then investigate over the next 21 working days, and then provide you with a written response to your complaint.
Once you have received our response to your complaint, and you have had an opportunity to review, we hope you are satisfied with our response. However, if you continue to be unhappy with the response, you can escalate this to our CEO within 14 working days from receiving our response. We call this a Level 2 complaint. Our CEO will review your original concern, our response to the formal complaint, and will also facilitate a call with yourself to discuss any outstanding concerns. Our CEO will then provide a formal written response within 21 working days from the escalation.
If you are still dissatisfied after the above steps, you may refer your complaint to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS), which offers an independent review of complaints. The ISCAS operates a three-stage complaints process:
Stage 1: Local Resolution
This is the process outlined in sections 4.2 to 4.4 above, where complaints are handled internally by Autism Oxford UK Limited.
Stage 2: Internal Appeal
If you are dissatisfied with the initial response, your complaint will be escalated to the CEO for further review as described in section 4.4.
Stage 3: Independent Adjudication by ISCAS
If the issue remains unresolved, you can escalate your complaint to ISCAS for an independent review. The adjudication process ensures that complaints are considered impartially. To initiate this, you must submit your complaint in writing to ISCAS within six months of receiving the final response from our CEO.
You can contact ISCAS via the following methods:
ISCAS,
CEDR, 3rd Floor
100 St. Paul’s Churchyard
London
EC4M 8BU
Tel: 020 7536 6091
Email: info@iscas.org.uk
Website: https://iscas.cedr.com/
Please note that ISCAS will only review complaints after stages 1 and 2 have been completed and when the internal complaints procedure has been fully exhausted.
Making a complaint to CQC (Care Quality Commission)
As a registered provider with the CQC, you are able to make a formal complaint if you are unhappy or feel we have offered an unsafe service in respect to the regulated activity we undertake. Please note not all our services are regulated by CQC. CQC will review your complaint and will follow their own processes in response. CQC will expect you to have followed our complaints process as well as notifying them if you are still not satisfied.
When things go wrong as a service we have a duty of candour and will be open with you in regards to this and ensure safety is key and learning is taken. We will also liaise and notify CQC who will support the service to ensure it provides a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led service.
What you can expect from our concerns and complaints process
- We will listen to your concerns and complaints. We are keen to try to get things right for people.
- When we get things wrong, we will provide an apology.
- We will provide you with an explanation of any near misses or when things have gone wrong. It’s important we provide information about how we reached our response to your concern and complaint.
- By raising concerns or a complaint, we want to reassure you that it will not impact the care and services you receive from us.
When there is not an agreement about the outcome of our assessments.
We are proud of our assessment service and ensuring that parents and individuals feel listened to. Providing an autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or other types of neurodevelopmental diagnostic assessments does not guarantee a diagnosis. Our team uses NICE recommended tools to support our diagnostic assessments and has several years of experience assessing autism and ADHD and the different profiles that can present.
However, we can only provide a clinical opinion and formulation based on the information obtained throughout the assessment process.
All our team members undertake formal training in the assessment tools used and also undertake regular coding consistency training. This ensures we continue to provide high standards in our assessments and consistency across our team.
Sometimes we are not able to conclude an assessment and may advise a period of treatment or support for other needs. The team will review the information and complete further assessments to reach a conclusion, without any additional costs.
When the team concludes that there is no diagnosis of autism and / or ADHD, the individual or family has the right to request a second review by another one of our psychologists. This needs to be requested within 14 days of the feedback meeting. Other team members may complete additional screenings or interviews as part of this review. You will be informed of any additional costs at the time. The second review carries a fee of £100.
If you continue to be unhappy with the outcome of the assessment, you may seek a second opinion from another provider or the NHS. In these cases, we request consent to liaise with the second opinion provider and release the recording of the observation assessment for ‘second scoring,’ enabling them to assess all of the information.
We do not provide refunds in relation to the outcome of the assessment. The cost of the assessment is used to cover the team members’ time and the materials used for your assessment.
Malicious complaints
While your feedback is really important to us and we are keen that you feel able to raise any concerns or complaints about the service you have receive. We also have a duty of care to support our team wellbeing and have a zero tolerance to aggression in any form towards our team members. Unfortunately in rare circumstances this can come in a form of a malicious complaint which refers to accusations made with malicious intent or without substantial basis, often to harass, defame or inconvenience the accused. If your complaint is felt to be malicious intent, we will write to you to explain this and the reasons why we think this. We reserve the right to not engage with malicious complaints and will seek legal advice as appropriate.