Our Complaints Policy

Breakthrough is the UK's leading charity committed to fighting breast cancer through research, campaigning and education.

Our strength comes from the thousands of people who are committed to a single vision - a future free from the fear of breast cancer.

We aim to provide a high quality service to our supporters – we rely on you to support and fund our vital work - and to members of the public who turn to us for information and support in campaigning for improvements in breast cancer services.

We value your comments and feedback to help us to develop and improve the quality of everything we do.

We are committed to establishing and maintaining good relations with all stakeholders.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer is a member of the Fundraising Standards Board.

Sometimes, despite our best intentions, we don’t get things right.  If you have any criticisms, concerns or complaints about Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s activities, please let us know so that we can put things right if possible, and make improvements for the future.

We aim to ensure that:

• It is as easy as possible to give feedback or make a complaint.
• We treat as a complaint any clear expression of dissatisfaction with our activities
• We treat all feedback and complaints seriously, whether made by telephone, email, letter, fax or in person.
• We deal with it quickly and politely – and within the timescales we have committed to.
• We respond appropriately – for example giving you an explanation, information on any action taken, or an apology where we have got things wrong.
• We learn from feedback and complaints, logging them, reviewing the log regularly and using them to improve our activities.

We are always looking at how we can improve – and we are grateful to supporters who tell us about their experience of Breakthrough events, activities and processes, in particular when you tell us what you think we could improve.  We will acknowledge and respond to all feedback.

Sometimes though, you may want us to take more formal action.

Step 1:  Contact us
You can call us, write to us or email us. 

It is often a good idea to raise the problem informally by telephone with the person concerned.  This is often the most effective way for us to find out exactly what has happened and to strive to resolve things very quickly and simply – and hopefully to your satisfaction.

If you would prefer to write to us or email us, please send your complaint in the first instance to the person you have already been dealing with at Breakthrough, or, if you prefer, or do not have a contact name, please send it to:

The Supporter Care Co-ordinator
Breakthrough Breast Cancer,
Weston House
246 High Holborn
London WC1V 7EX

Or by email us at: complaints@breakthrough.org.uk  

Please make sure that you include your full name, address, and where possible a contact telephone number and email address.

We will try to resolve the problem straight away if we can.  If we can’t do this, for example because the information we need is not to hand, or because we need to carry out further investigation, then we will make a record of your complaint and agree the best way and time to contact you.  This will normally be within five working days  unless we make some other arrangement that is acceptable to you.

Step 2:  Taking your complaint further
If after initially raising the complaint, you are still unhappy with our response, the next step is to ask for it to be dealt with by someone more senior.  Please set out clearly in writing (or in an email) the details of the complaint, explaining why you were not satisfied with our response and what you would like us to do to put things right.

You can send your letter, or email,  to your previous contact (we are all committed to dealing with complaints promptly and as set out in our complaints procedure – so it will be dealt with in the same way, whoever receives it); but if you prefer, you can send it to the Supporter Care Co-ordinator.

Your complaint will be acknowledged in writing or via email within three working days and the acknowledgment will say when you can expect a full response. This will normally be within ten working days, unless the matter is particularly complicated, in which case it may take us up to fifteen working days.  If it is not going to be possible to give you a full response in that time, we will contact you anyway, and tell you when we expect to be able to provide a full response.

Step 3: The next stage
If you are still not satisfied with our full response, please let us know in writing, and tell us what you wish us to do next.  Your complaint will be passed to the relevant member of the senior management team (that is, the Director responsible for the activity) or to the Chief Executive’s Office for further investigation and response.  You can expect this to take a further ten working days from the date on which we receive your letter or email.

If your complaint is about our fundraising work or activities and you are not satisfied with the response from the Director of Fundraising, it is possible to ask the Fundraising Standards Board to investigate further.

You must refer the matter to them within two months of receiving the response from the Director of Fundraising.  Details of their Complaints Process are available on their website.

Their contact details are:

The Fundraising Standards Board
Hampton House
20 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7TJ
0845 402 5442
www.fsboard.org.uk

If your complaint is about any other aspect of our charitable work, you may wish to contact the Charity Commission:

The Charity Commission
PO Box 1227
Liverpool
L69 3UG
0845 3000 218
www.charity-commission.gov.uk

If your complaint is about our activity in Scotland, you may wish to contact the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR):

Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
2nd Floor
Quadrant House
9 Riverside Drive
Dundee
DD1 4NY

All the complaints we receive are recorded in a complaints log.  Where appropriate, we use the information to make changes in our policies and procedures to improve the services we provide to our supporters.  We report each year to our Senior Management Team, our Board of Trustees and the Fundraising Standards Board on the complaints that have been received and the changes in processes and procedures that we have made as a result.