Complaints from third-party providers

Organisations should have clear processes for dealing with complaints from third-party providers relating to contractual matters. These may be set out in contracts between the organisation and the provider and may include alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation.

The Ombudsman is not normally an appropriate forum for resolving contractual disputes and the law prevents us from investigating some contractual matters. However, there may be occasions where the dispute is impacting a service user or group of service users (e.g. disputes about care arrangements). In these cases, the organisation should be signposted to the Ombudsman at the end of the complaints or any other dispute resolution process.

Third-party providers may be able to complain to the Ombudsman about non-contractual concerns and so should be signposted to us where it is appropriate to do so.