Participants are invited to give informal feedback to Cafe hosts via the Participants Feedback Form. This goes directly to the Menopause Cafe Charity Administrator, who reads it and forwards to the host.

1. Purpose of the Complaints Policy

This policy outlines:

  • how to make a formal complaint against Menopause Cafe charity or the hosts.
  • how Trustees or hosts will respond to complaints.

2. Background

  1. The Menopause Cafe is a Scottish Charity Incorporated Organisation, registration number 048435, registered with the Scottish Charity Regulator, OSCR.
  2. Menopause Cafe charity operates on a social franchising model.
  3. The Menopause Cafe Hosts are social franchisees, running Menopause Cafes in their community or workplace, remotely or in person.

3. The Objectives of this Policy

The key objectives are:

  • To assist those who wish to make a complaint against the Menopause Cafe charity or a Cafe Host.
  • To provide a simple procedure to process complaints received by the Menopause Cafe charity or a Cafe Host.
  • To ensure a rapid and open process.
  • To provide an approach that is honest, thorough and with the prime aim of satisfying the concerns of the complainant.
  • To make it easy to extract lessons from complaints and therefore to improve services provided.

4. How to Complain

  1. If the complaint relates to events or procedures that take place at a Menopause Cafe, then contact the Cafe Host directly.
  2. If you don’t feel able to raise your complaint directly with the Host, or if you are not satisfied with the Host’s response, then contact the Menopause Cafe Secretary via our website “Contact Us” page.
  3. If your complaint relates to any other matters related to the charity, then contact the Menopause Cafe Secretary of the Board via our website “Contact Us” page.
  4. If your complaint is about the Secretary of the Board, then contact the Chair of the Trustees via our website “Contact Us” page.
  5. For the remainder of this document, we will refer to the person to whom the complaint is made, ie  the Cafe Host or the Secretary or the Chair, as “the Recipient”.

5. Responding to complaints

  1. Oral complaints will be dealt with directly and verbally, if possible. 
  2. An email acknowledgement of receipt of a written complaint will be made by the Recipient within 5 working days. 
  3. A written reply will normally be sent within a month. If investigation into the complaint is going to take longer than this time, the Complainant will be contacted with an explanation.
  4. If you are not satisfied with the response to your complaint then you can appeal. Your appeal will be investigated by someone not involved in the initial response ie other Committee members or an external person. The appeal process may take up to three months from submission.
  5. If you are not satisfied with the appeal result, you may be able to raise a concern with OSCR, the charities regulator, see www.oscr.org.uk 

6. Data collection and reporting

  1. The Recipient will report all written and any relevant verbal complaints to the Menopause Cafe charity Administrator using the Complaint Procedure Template below.
  2. The Administrator will share this with the Trustees, who may contact the Recipient to discuss further. 
  3. The Menopause Cafe charity will keep accurate and full records of all communications regarding complaints, in line with our Privacy Policy.  
  4. The Menopause Cafe operates under the civil law of Scotland.

Each complaint report will be completed using the following format:

Complainant’s name and contact details
Date complaint logged
Date of acknowledgement
Date of Response
Key concerns raised
Action taken
Source of advice if required
Key learning points

7. Evaluation and Annual Report for the board of trustees

  1. The Chair and the Administrator will read and reflect on each Complaint Report individually and evaluate them collectively.
  2. The purpose of evaluation is to consider trends in complaints, identify learning points and improve safety, procedures and satisfaction of participants and hosts.
  3. An annual review of Complaints will be provided by the Administrator at the AGM.

8. Communication 

This policy is available on the Menopause Cafe charity website.