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The best part about my role as the Programme Manager for the Answer Cancer Programme is meeting our Cancer Champions. 

Cancer Champions are people from all walks of life, from many different backgrounds and of all different ages who have vital conversations that save lives. 

Anyone can be a Cancer Champion 

Our Cancer Champions are hugely important to the aims of Answer Cancer in raising awareness of cancer, promoting the importance of screening and challenging health inequalities.

Answer Cancer work with diverse communities across Greater Manchester and our Champions are the people who carry these important messages into the hearts of their groups, neighbourhoods, families, friends and workplaces. Champions are the people who know how best to hold these conversations, the language to use and how to ensure the message is delivered sensitively and 

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in a way that makes sense to the listener. This is because Champions are part of the communities that they are talking to, they understand the people in their groups and workplaces and know best how to start a conversation. 

Currently, Answer Cancer have nearly two thousand Cancer Champions across Greater Manchester who are working hard to help people understand how screening can detect cancer at an early stage and save lives one conversation at a time. Our Champions activities range from talking to family and friends, or work colleagues, to those who are getting involved in public speaking and putting on events and information sessions. All of our Champions are fulfilling their role using their talents how they feel most comfortable in multiple different ways from one-to-one conversations through to singing in choirs, performing and producing art. 

The great strength of our Champions is that many of them have lived experience of cancer, either as people who are living with it, as carers and as family and friends of people with cancer. Their lived experience and stories of cancer journeys told peer to peer are a fantastic social movement that is promoting the importance of screening through these important conversations. 

Training

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The Answer Cancer Programme supports our Champions by providing free training to give them accurate information and the confidence talk about cancer and screening, as well as providing regular newsletters to keep everyone updated on new developments and events. As part of this, we hold a regular celebration of the achievements of our Champions where we get to meet each other, hear about everyone’s work and listen to their stories. These events are a truly joyous celebration of the vital work of our Cancer Champions and the difference that their thousands of conversations are making to raising awareness of how to detect cancer early and save lives in their communities. 

Catching cancer early is vital and our wonderful Cancer Champions are saving lives, one conversation at a time. 

If you want to become a Cancer Champion and find out more about our next celebration event, please visit our website at Home - Answer Cancer where you can find out more about what we are doing and find out how to register. 

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Dealing with complaints as a voluntary sector organisation can be challenging. Our community groups, organisations, charities and CIC’s are here to make a positive difference for the people of Salford, so it can come as a shock to them when someone complains about their organisation, staff or volunteers. 

So how do you deal with it?

Your organisation should have a complaints policy, or sometimes a compliments complaints and suggestion policy, don’t worry if you don’t have one here is a link to our Development Team - we can help you with that!

However, many organisations already have a policy, they have just never had to use it. Find your complaints policy, in fact look now, don’t wait for a complaint be prepared ahead of time.

What do you do first? 

Stay calm and methodical

Take a deep breath, do not dismiss the complaint outright, even if you suspect it has no standing or is malicious. Approach the situation calmly and with a clear head. Keep records, right from the being, the date the time, who is involved and if its in person, what was said and who else was present? 

If the complaint involves you personally record it and, if possible, pass it on to an uninvolved person – usually in line with and or identified in your complaints policy and procedure. If you don’t have an identified person pass it to your manager and if you are not employed, then your volunteer manager. Many small groups are made up of volunteers, so the Chair of your Management Committee or another Committee member is the best choice. 

Again, if you have time to prepare, discuss this in your organisation, nominate someone and provide them with some training. 

Complaints policy

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This blog will do as a rough guide in an emergency, but nothing replaces having an easily available complaints policy. What does yours say about when and how you respond to the complainant? Do you require contact information? Do you provide estimated times for the initial response, investigation etc? 

• We recommend you have a timeline for acknowledging receipt of the complaint, and alongside that, you should ideally set out the timeline going forward for response and how the complaint will be dealt with
• Ensure the complaint is formally acknowledged asap. This is also a good opportunity to ask the complainant for additional details, ensuring you have contact information and anything they wished to be considered, but did not include in the official complaint. It is always important to ask what outcome the complainant wants. If all they want is an apology for an honest mistake, galvanising the whole procedure is unnecessary. However, you must still record it and pass it through to the correct person, sometimes complaints re-emerge or are needed so that the organisation can change is working practice or procedure.
• Giving someone a timeline for response allows you time to get advice and support if you did not have a policy in place this is where a call to our Development Team can come in handy

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Investigate thoroughly

Follow your organisation's established complaint handling procedure to ensure a fair process. Investigate all aspects of the complaint, gather evidence, and speak to any relevant witnesses. This should be done as soon as possible, as people’s memories become less reliable over time. Do not forget digital evidence including email and social media information. If there is an incident report include this within your investigations

Create a chronology

Prepare a timeline of events to help you understand how the alleged incident/ problem occurred.

Facts not opinions

When gathering evidence make sure that you are using facts, not opinions or assumptions. This means recording verifiable information and avoiding subjective language. Separate objective, evidence-based statements from personal beliefs or interpretations by verifying facts through credible sources, checking for bias, and attributing information to its original source. 

For example the following statement is proffered as fact ‘the complainant was given a dirty cup’ if this was not witnessed and attested to, this should either be the complaint claimed they were given a dirty cup or the complainant was observed with a dirty cup –  or the complainant had a dirty cup that they claimed they were given, depending on what can actually be corroborated .

Be descriptive but accurate, the complaint said, spoke, loudly, shouted? which is verifiable, and who is witnessing this happening.

Always consider the possibility of genuine concerns

Your primary goal is to identify genuine issues. This includes issues and concerns of your staff members and volunteers, as well as the complainant.

If the complaint is against your own organisation, a staff member, director, trustee or volunteer, ensure that they are supported throughout the process you have a duty of care to the people who are a part of your organisation, which is not overridden by an as-yet unsubstantiated accusation.

Document everything

Keep a detailed record of all communications, evidence gathered, and the steps taken during the investigation. This should fit into your complaints policy and procedure and include times and some standard responses. 

You must follow your organisation's policies, such as having the right to be accompanied at meetings. Those involved in the process should keep the issues confidential and within your organisation (except for things that need to be dealt with by an external authority for example, the Police) 

Remember GDPR, you may be asked to disclose your records. It’s important that your records are factual and fair. You should never use accusatory or derogatory language. However, questioning and establishing facts is expected and should happen and should be recorded. If something is unsubstantiated, do not say ‘this is a lie’ or this I not true, try instead ‘we have found no evidence to support this claim’ or ‘this claim cannot be verified’. 

Always get advice on releasing GDPR information and remember that you should not be including the personal information of third parties.

If this is not a complaint that is easily solved to the satisfaction of the complainant and the organisation within your policy and procedure, seek advice: Consult with HR, a trade union representative, or an employment solicitor for guidance on how to proceed, especially in complex or escalating cases. https://www.lawworks.org.uk/knowledgeable-and-thoughtful-voice-pro-bono-sector

Communicate the decision

Inform the complainant of the investigation's outcome in writing, explaining the decision and the next steps. This should be obvious, but if you have had a complaint, part of your procedure should be to decide on that complaint, again, remain within your policies and processes for timelines and terms, including offers of appeal or mediation.

Consider counteraction

If the investigation proves the complaint has no standing and it potentially was malicious, you may be able to take action against the individual who made the false accusation. This could include raising a grievance against them or, in severe cases, taking legal action. It’s very important that this is a considered Board/Committee decision and that reputational harm, individual impact and the ethos of the organisation and cost are considered before counteraction is agreed. This type of action is most likely covered under your professional indemnity insurance, or your directors' or Trustees' insurance. Check your policies for more information.

Learn from the experience

Use any situation where you need to use your complaints policy and procedure as an opportunity to review and improve your complaint handling for the future. Look at best practice and if possible and appropriate, talk to the people involved in the complaint afterwards to see what worked and what didn’t for them. 

Including the complainant

This does not necessarily mean change. If someone’s complaint is unsuccessful or malicious, they may consider the system flawed or inadequate even if it is not. Again, be proportional and objective.

What next

You may take no action. You might want to:

• Introduce statements about how your staff volunteers and service users should be treated
• Provide updated training for staff and volunteers service standards
• Change and improve your support for staff and volunteers during complaints. 

You won’t know what might need changing or updating until you review how it all worked.

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Finally, be kind, to yourself, your staff and volunteers and the complainant 

Complaints can really knock the stuffing out of your group or organisation, they can make people question if what they’re doing is worth their time and they can extract a very real emotional and mental wellbeing cost. Kind does not mean sweeping it under the carpet and not mentioning it again or ignoring lessons. 

It does mean delivering learning with grace and provide support for change, if it is needed. Recognise the effect the pressure the complaint and the process put people under and find organisations or people to support those affected. Including you!