​We aim to provide a high standard of service for everyone, and we would love to hear about your positive experience. However, if you feel things have gone wrong with part of our work or how you have been dealt with then we have a process to ensure your complaint is handled appropriately and fairly. We have a duty to safeguard our service users, staff, volunteers, supporters and potential audiences – this requires the sharing of information to our safeguarding team, Caldicott Guardian and Freedom to Speak Up Champion who are keen to hear from you.

We do not always get things right and you may feel unhappy with how you have been dealt with. Or you may have a concern you wish for us to consider.

In the first instance, you should speak to a member of staff who you’ve been dealing with or ask to speak to their manager, or use our contact page and we’ll make sure you get through to the right person to assist you in answering your questions. We will carefully review your concern and where we can we will put things right. If we can’t, we will explain why and apologise when we have been at fault.

Your complaints, compliments and suggestions will help us to improve our standard of service to you, so let us know your views.

If you are unhappy about the way we have handled your complaint you can refer your complaint to the relevant regulator listed below.

Raising a safeguarding concern or incident

Our safeguarding team can be contacted on [email protected]. 

The inbox is staffed Monday to Friday, if you believe someone is at risk of immediate harm, please contact your local authority safeguarding team or call the police in an emergency.  

In addition to our safeguarding team, our director lead for Safeguarding is Eugene Lynch. There is also a trustee lead for Safeguarding.

Complaints about other services

Please note that we are unable to investigate complaints about services we haven’t provided to you.

The NHS provides the overwhelming majority of sexual health services in the UK. Please therefore take a moment to check who provides the service you wish to complain about on the NHS website. If it is the NHS, you can find more information about how to make a complaint about their service.

If you believe you have been discriminated against by another service provider because of your HIV status, we may be able to advise you through THT Direct.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint satisfactorily, we will clearly signpost you to the Fundraising Regulator or the Scottish Fundraising Standards Panel.

Freedom to Speak Up

At Terrence Higgins Trust we support the principles and ethos of the Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) movement in healthcare settings. This is a process for staff, volunteers and service users to speak up about concerns they have about patient safety or how their concerns have been handled.

We have a Freedom to Speak Up director lead, Dominic Edwardes, and a trustee lead, Claire Dewsnap, who between them:

  • Support staff, volunteers and service-users who feel they can't speak up through other channels. They provide confidential advice and support, and ensure that issues raised are responded to.
  • Help create a positive culture where people feel their voices will be heard and acted upon. 

Our complaints procedure

Stage One: Informal complaint

If you are unhappy about how we’ve dealt with you, you should speak to a member of staff who you’ve been dealing with or ask to speak to their manager, or use our contact page and we’ll make sure you get through to the right person to assist you in answering your questions.

We will contact you within two working days of receiving your complaint, and attempt to address the problem within five working days.

Stage Two: Formal complaint

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the complaint at stage one, contact Terrence Higgins Trust’s head office with details of your complaint.

You can contact our head office by emailing [email protected], writing to us at The Chief Executive’s Office, Terrence Higgins Trust, 439 Caledonian Road, London, N7 9BG or by calling us on 020 7812 1600 and asking for the Chief Executive’s Office.

We will write to you to acknowledge your complaint and provide information outlining our complaints procedure. We will inform you of what action is being taken, the person dealing with the complaint and the time by which you can expect to receive a detailed response.

Stage Three

If you are not satisfied by the outcome of stage two, you can request a further investigation of your complaint led by the Chief Executive, who will review the information from yourself and the stage two response letter.

Stage Four

Where a complaint is not satisfactorily resolved at stage three, you can request an investigation of your complaint by the Chair of the Board of Trustees. Any such review will only deal with the following matters:

  • That the investigation has been carried out in line with the stated procedure.
  • That the investigation has been handled fairly.

The Chair will not comment on the substance of the complaint.

If the Chair of the Board of Trustees finds that the correct procedure was not followed, or that the matter had not been fairly handled, they will specify why and give directions for a re-investigation.

The decision of the Chair of the Board of Trustees is final and will be provided in a formal letter of response.

Make a complaint or send a compliment

To make a formal complaint or send a compliment to Terrence Higgins Trust, please contact us in any of the following ways:

External regulators

To make a complaint to external regulators please contact the following: