Advocacy and Complaints Services

Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham cannot investigate specific complaints. We look for trends or issues from what you have told us about your experiences.

However, there are organisations in place that can offer you services if and when you need to make a complaint or need to use a advocacy service.

Barking and Dagenham NHS Complaints Advocacy Service 

The NHS Complaints Advocacy Service for Barking and Dagenham is delivered by Cambridge House Advocacy Services.  The NHS Complaints Advocacy Service is a free and independent service that can help you make a complaint about a National Health Service (NHS).

Cambridge House Advocacy Services has a dedicated website that has information to support and help you make a complaint by yourself.

If you need support to make a complaint, then Cambridge House Advocacy Service advocates will be able to work with you to make sure you understand your options and help you achieve the outcome you are seeking.

Telephone: 020 7358 7007 (9am to 5pm Monday to Friday)
Email: chadvocacy@ch1889.org

Cambridge House offers several advocacy services in Barking and Dagenham:

• Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA): People who have a mental illness, dementia, or an injury to the brain can be declared by a medical professional as lacking the capacity to make their own decisions. IMCAs ensure that their rights are upheld and that any decision made is in the person’s best interests.
• Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA): People may be detained or sectioned in hospital under the Mental Health Act or have their liberty restricted by Community Treatment Orders. IMHAs help them to understand their rights and communicate their wishes.
• Care and Support Advocacy (Care Act): Under the Care Act (2014), local authorities must ensure that a person is fully involved when their social care and support needs are being reviewed. Certain people are entitled to an independent advocate to help them to be as involved as possible.
• Relevant Person’s Representative Advocacy (RPR): A Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS) is designed to protect people who are being deprived of their liberty in a hospital or care home. People in this situation have access to a Relevant Person’s Representative to uphold their best interests.
• Cambridge House: Barking and Dagenham Advocacy
• Cambridge House: Self-Advocacy