14. What can I do if I have a problem with getting the care I need?

By law, social services departments must have a complaints procedure and a complaints officer to supervise it. They must be able to give you information about:

• how to make a complaint;
• how quickly they should deal with it; and
• where you can get help with making a complaint.

Normally, councils will try to deal with complaints informally, perhaps by seeing if you and the social services officer you usually deal with can sort things out between you.

If this 'informal stage' doesn’t solve your problem, you may want (or be asked) to go to a more 'formal' stage. This starts with you putting your complaint in writing. The complaints officer should help you do this.

If you're not happy with what happens after you have been through the formal stage, you can ask for your complaint to be looked at by a review panel. This will include one person who is not part of the council. You can go to the panel's meeting and you can have someone there to speak for you if you want.

If your complaint is still not sorted out, you should contact the Local Government Ombudsman or Local Ombudsman for Wales, who may be able to help (see 'Further help').

Councils must have a 'monitoring officer' (someone who makes sure that the council is doing what the law says it must do). So if you think your council has broken the law (for example, if they won't pay for your residential care when you think the law says they should), you can ask the 'monitoring officer' to look at your case. Your local councillor or member of parliament might also be able to help.

If these don't sort your problem out, you can also ask the Secretary of State for Health (in England) or the Welsh Assembly (in Wales). However, you will need to get legal advice before you do this.

Another possibility is to use (or threaten to use) the courts, either to:

• sue the council for a 'breach of its legal duty' (this can be difficult to prove); or
• get a judge to rule on whether the council's actions were legal, rational and reasonable (a process called 'judicial review').

You will need legal advice in either case. If you cannot afford to pay for a solicitor, and you meet other conditions, you may be able to get public funding (which used to be called legal aid). See 'The Community Legal Service' below for how to find out more about this.

What if I have a problem with NHS care?

You can complain about any area of health care from the NHS. Your local community health council or, where they have been set up, your local Patient Advice and Liaison Service (England) or Patient support (Wales)should have information about the NHS complaints system and about independent help (‘complaints advocacy’) in your area (see 'Further help' for details).

The government is considering reforms of the NHS complaints system. Currently, if you have a problem, first contact the hospital, surgery or clinic involved. They should have a leaflet telling you how to make your complaint. If you can't sort things out at this stage, you can ask the NHS Trust Health Board or health authority to have your complaint reviewed by an independent panel. However, in some cases, they don’t have to agree to this.