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Navigating services · UK

When services aren’t helping

You’ve asked for help, but it has been refused, you’re waiting a long time, or you don’t know what happens next. Services can be stretched, and waiting can be hard on both of you.

Ask for the decision and the next stepAsk where things stand, what happens next and what support is available while you wait. If help has been refused, ask why and what is offered instead. Pass on new or worsening concerns. A complaint is not an emergency route.

Do this next

  1. Check where things stand. With their agreement, help them contact the service or the GP who referred them. Ask whether the referral has been received, how long the next step may take and when to chase again. If help has been refused, ask why and what is offered instead.
  2. Ask about help while waiting. Ask their GP or team what support is available now and who to contact if things get worse. You can also look together for local or peer support.
  3. Describe what has happened. Give dates and specific changes: sleep, eating or drinking, self-harm, threats, confusion, missed medication, risky behaviour and what may happen without help.
  4. Say what is new. If things have got worse since you last spoke to the service, contact their GP or care team again and explain what has changed. Do not rely on an earlier call to describe a situation that is now worse. Use the urgent-help route if help is needed now.

Words you can use

When you're still waiting“We’re still waiting to hear. Can you check the referral has arrived, tell us roughly how long it might take, and what help is available in the meantime?”
Ask for a clear decision“Please tell me what decision has been made, who made it, why this service is not being offered, and what we should do next.”
When something has changed“The situation has changed since the last assessment. The new information is: [say exactly what has happened and when]. Please record this and reconsider the current risk.”
When you can't safely keep supporting at home“I can't safely provide the support they need at home. I'm worried about [what's happening]. What help can you arrange, and what should I do while we wait?”

Tell the service what you can and cannot do, including if you cannot stay with them. Ask for this to be included in the plan. If help cannot wait, use the urgent help for their UK nation.[1]

If confidentiality is used to shut down the call

Confidentiality may prevent staff from telling you about the person's care. It does not prevent them from listening to your concerns. Ask them to record the information, while recognising that they may need to tell the person where important information came from.

Confidentiality: what you can tell the care team and what they may share.[2]

Ask whether the service uses the Triangle of Care

The Triangle of Care is a Carers Trust scheme for including and supporting unpaid carers in mental-health services. Ask whether the provider is a member, who its carers lead is and what its policy says about listening to carer information and supporting carers.

Carers Trust: Triangle of Care.

Raise a concern or complaint

Use the route for the nation where the service was provided. PALS is an England service and should not be used as the general UK route.

England
  1. Try PALS for a current problem. PALS can help resolve concerns and explain the local complaints process.
  2. Make a formal complaint. Complain to the service provider or the commissioner. State what happened, the effect it had and what you want reviewed or put right.
  3. After the final response. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman makes final decisions on unresolved NHS complaints in England.

NHS England: feedback and complaints and Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

Wales
  1. Raise the concern with the health board or trust. NHS Wales calls its complaints process Listening to People.
  2. Ask Llais for help. Llais provides independent complaints advocacy for health and social care in Wales, including when you are speaking on someone else's behalf.
  3. After the final response. The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales can consider unresolved complaints about NHS bodies in Wales.

Llais: Listening to People and complaints advocacy and Public Services Ombudsman for Wales: NHS complaints.

Scotland
  1. Complain to the NHS organisation. NHS Scotland has a two-stage complaints procedure: early resolution, followed by investigation where needed.
  2. Ask PASS for independent support. The Patient Advice and Support Service can help with letters, calls and meetings about an NHS complaint in Scotland.
  3. After the final response. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is the final stage for unresolved NHS complaints in Scotland.

NHS inform: making a complaint, PASS and Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

Northern Ireland
  1. Complain to the HSC organisation. Contact the relevant Health and Social Care trust or service complaints team.
  2. Ask the Patient and Client Council for support. It provides free help and advice with Health and Social Care complaints.
  3. After the final response. The Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman can consider unresolved complaints after the organisation's complaints process has been completed.

nidirect: HSC complaints and contact details, Patient and Client Council support and Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman.

A complaint takes time. Keep using the urgent route if the person's condition or risk changes while it is being considered.

In England, when does the CQC deal with a complaint?

The Care Quality Commission does not resolve most individual NHS complaints. In England, it has a specific complaints role for concerns about how Mental Health Act powers and duties have been used for someone detained in hospital, on a Community Treatment Order or under guardianship. It will usually ask for the service's own complaints route to be used first.

CQC: complain about use of the Mental Health Act.

What if help is still being refused?

Ask what the service recommends instead and what changes should trigger another referral or urgent call. Keep a short record of contacts and decisions. Continue passing on new information. If the person's safety changes, use the urgent route for your UK nation rather than waiting for the complaint.

If alcohol or drug use is part of the reason services are passing the person between teams, see mental health and substance use. If abuse or neglect may be involved, see safeguarding concerns.

You may also need support for yourself. Support for you and the community directory include places to talk to people who understand.

Related guides

What “they have capacity” meansMental health and substancesWrite to their GPPhoning for urgent help
Sources and how this guide was written

  1. Words you can use

    Mind: supporting someone while recognising your own limits.

    Back to the advice

  2. If confidentiality is used to shut down the call

    NHS England says services should not use confidentiality as a reason not to listen to families and carers. GMC guidance confirms that listening is not a breach of confidentiality.

    Back to the advice

Why we say this

Rethink Mental Illness explains rights to NHS treatment. Its Mental Health Act guidance also lists the concrete risk information professionals may ask about.

Why the routes are split by nation

The four UK health systems use different complaints procedures, advocacy services and ombudsmen. The official routes are linked inside each nation panel above.
About the sources

The links explain the official urgent-help and complaints routes in each UK nation, alongside practical advice from mental-health charities. Mind: coping on a waiting list for therapy covers asking for updates and finding support while waiting.

Last full source check: 27 August 2026

Later checks: Waiting-list guidance checked: 27 September 2026. Supporter-limit wording checked: 30 September 2026. Rechecked against Mind guidance: 8 October 2026; wording retained.

Independent information, not a medical or crisis service. This guidance has not been clinically reviewed. How we use sources.

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