VoiceAbility Avis 

Waiting lists years long for urgent statutory advocacy but the council aren’t interested in using another provider when I complain they say they have a contract with voiceability and it’s just ‘teething problems’ but Voiceability have had the contract 3 years apparently. Less than useless. Don’t respond to anything.

You’re just wasting our taxpayers money as usual Cheshire East! 0 stars if I could.

Spoke to a lady to obtain information and quite honestly she was rude and officious. Very unfriendly. Lacked warmth and compassion. I couldn’t believe how unfriendly she was. Came off the phone very disappointed and upset.

I have had a very disappointing experience with VoiceAbility and honestly do not feel they provide the level of advocacy support needed for people with severe autistic spectrum disorder and significant mental health difficulties.

The type of advocacy I require has not been available through this service despite multiple attempts to seek support and referrals. Communication has been poor, and I often felt misunderstood, unheard, and dismissed by staff. For a service that is supposed to support vulnerable individuals, the lack of understanding around autism and complex mental health needs was extremely frustrating.

I have spent a long time researching other advocacy options locally and speaking to different people involved in support services, but there appears to be very little else available in my area. That makes this even more disappointing because people like me are left without meaningful help.

In my opinion, the service feels ineffective and not equipped to deal with complex cases. I personally do not understand why funding continues to go into services that fail to properly support those who need advocacy the most.

I have heard that organizations such as POhWER and Rethink Mental Illness may offer broader or more suitable advocacy support, which is unfortunate because they are not local to me. I have submitted referrals several times elsewhere and often never hear anything back.

Voiceability advocacy groups are often perceived as being overly focused on generating profit, prioritising financial gain over the needs of the people they claim to support, and appearing selfish in the way they handle access to their services and resources

Overall, this experience has left me feeling unsupported, frustrated, and let down by a system that is supposed to help vulnerable people access proper advocacy.

This is the standard service voiceability provides:
- Ask personal questions, then give you generic/inadequate feedback.
- Give you a form to fill.
- If you have a specific question about the form, tell you to get advice elsewhere.
- Email the form you completed (probably) to the appropriate body without proofreading. So if you accidentally send a draft, that's it. Your complaint is over. This could significantly impact your disease outcome, and that's it; the local healthcare provider continues to make avoidable mistakes.

They do not:
- Signpost to someone who can help you with specific issues. My advocate said, "You should find this advice yourself."
- Call you and listen to what you think and what is happening to you. My advocate never calls, even if I ask them to.
- Help you say what you want and don't want. My advocate said they will not help me ensure my complaint document makes sense.
- Explain your options. My advocate did not explain my options; they just gave me a form.
- Plan with you what to do. My advocate provided me with their "action plan", for which I have no input. It is a problem, as I have periods where I am too ill to work on her plan (hence the original request for an advocate. We are all in the same boat after all.)

What is claimed on the website and what they actually do are night and day. I am sure some good advocates go above and beyond, but they are breaking the company's standards (which the normal advocates repeat ad nauseam). In fact, I had a good advocate for 2 weeks, but she was let go.

There is no accommodation for your disability, compassion, or empathy. This inadequate behaviour is a problem when you have a minor brain injury (due to an infection), which affects some of your reading and writing. An injury is slowing the activity compared to what normal people would do.

The taxpayers are paying £15.5M for this service. This is because governments recognise the benefits of a continuous-improvement NHS/Healthcare system where patients' voices are understandable, which saves lives (and, for those of us who care about the budget, money) in the long term.

But Voiceability provides poor-quality advocacy, resulting in wasted effort and money for all parties. There is a culture of "we will only do the bare minimum" and a "cannot do " attitude.

It's sad when it matters so much.

Contacted them on 30/03/26 and 23/04/26 - have not received a reply.

Worst advocacy ever, they didn't even tell me they were no longer representing me. Wouldn't trust them to put the bins out, given them 1 star because giving them 0 wasn't an option.

Please stay clear of these people. They do not act as your voice; they expect you to do everything. They have no empathy, compassion and use excuses as being short staff as an excuse to not be responsible. This isn’t an advocacy service I would recommend to anyone and whoever funds them needs to remove that funding.

Second time using Voicabilily, first time useless, second time useless, they dont' offer a service people need, they say that they are here to help people make complaints but they are NOT helping people make complaints, they are ONLY giving information about "how" you go about it and then you have to do all the work yourself, they DO NOT provide help and support, this is utterly untrue and voicability are not fit for purpose whatsoever.

Totally pointless. Advocate did nothing to assist. Still do not have a substantive answer to my complaint. I can only hope she is a volunteer and not paid. However this service is funded it is a total waste of money.

They dont give a S. Just pass your off and say they can't help via a email not even bothering to call you. Absolutely useless service!. I get more of a conversation speaking to a brick wall!.

I was a volunteer in this company, they never send jobs or roles to me to help out elderly. We got a meeting once a year which is completely useless because they don’t include the agenda and feedbacks or anything. You gain no experience or skills in this company. If you want to volunteer in this company it is better for you to volunteer in another company.

I contacted VoiceAbility for advocacy support regarding serious and ongoing problems with my GP. At first, everything seemed normal the operator listened as I explained the situation. But the moment I provided my name and address, the tone changed completely. I was suddenly told that VoiceAbility “does not cover my area.”

This statement is completely false, because VoiceAbility does cover Coventry. Yet despite this, I was refused support without any valid explanation.

This incident is not isolated. It fits into a long and deeply troubling pattern of behaviour I have been experiencing within the NHS. I have repeatedly felt shut out, ignored, and blocked from receiving help. Over time, this has led me to believe that there is a coordinated effort a conspiracy within the NHS system to prevent me from getting the support, treatment, and advocacy I need.

VoiceAbility’s refusal, based on information that is simply untrue, feels like a continuation of that same pattern. Instead of helping someone who is already vulnerable and fighting for fairness, they reinforced the same barriers and the same sense of being deliberately targeted and excluded.

For an organisation that claims to protect people’s rights, this behaviour is unacceptable, unprofessional, and harmful. Being denied advocacy at a moment when you already feel isolated and mistreated only deepens the distress and injustice.

Based on my experience, I cannot recommend VoiceAbility to anyone seeking honest, reliable, or supportive advocacy.

My experience with VoiceAbility has been very disheartening. It has been extremely difficult to get hold of the advocate assigned to me — she is often unwell or unavailable, and when I have asked for someone else to help, I’ve been told that she “often forgets to phone people back,” as though that were perfectly acceptable.

Rather than offering practical support or following up on my concerns, I was advised to “go to the press” to raise the issues I was facing. This is not what an advocacy service is supposed to do. The purpose of an advocacy service is to assist people in dealing with their complaints and navigating complex issues, not to dismiss them or pass the responsibility elsewhere.

Overall, the service has fallen short of even the most basic standards of support and communication. I expected help in addressing my situation, but instead I’ve been left feeling let down and ignored.

Appauling customer service. I had the strangest phone call I've ever had. The woman sounded like she was high she was so nanchalant and away with the fairies. She was completely unhelpful and didn't answer my questions. She said weird things not appropriate to customer service like 'Well things change...' in a really dreamy slow way. The next person was pretty odd but I got something out of him but not what I asked.
Then someone who emailed about my case apologised for the phone call issue (with no proper explanation or understanding) but then just said my case was now closed because they don't do appointment advocacy. Even though they had taken my referal and not got back to me to let me know. Possibly no one had read it. My question for the calls and the email was for them to let me know what's changed in the past two years, because I had a wonderful advocate then but I've had no conversation or information. They are completely disinterested and have zero care for people needing help. They didn't even acknowledge that I had been helped for appointments in the past.
Apparently, it's a well guarded secret why the advocacy on offer has changed. We mortals are not allowed to be talked to about it.
Was my previous advocate a hallucination? We'll never know.

This organisation are unprofessional, incompetent, lacklustre and, on a personal level potentially have cost me a great deal of monies in ‘lost‘ benefits due to a deeply and catastrophically flawed submission.

The Local Government Welfare officer I now engage with advised no point submitting an appeal based on VA original lamentable submission. As a thoroughly professional, competent and highly experienced person I respect her judgment totally.

If I had the energy levels to get litigious in tandem to having to resubmit I gladly would.

It’s on the back burner though. Litigation is a very real option when my case is resolved.

Right now I’m concentrating on re applying using competent and professional assistance rather than that from Voice Ability’s narcissistic hobbyist!

In short

This organisation is not fit for purpose in any way shape or form. They are incompetent, damaging and corrosive.

I sincerely hope that they’re soon subject to a detailed forensic investigation with regard to governance, competencies( or lack thereof) , service levels and results, and subsequently that they are struck off the charity register and do everyone a favour by disappearing from the advocacy landscape permanently.

When there is a decision made re my claim ( positive or negative) I will spend a great deal of time ensuring that VA has a tidal wave of investigation for Government Departments, Enforcement Agencies and The Charity Commission to assure those relying on advocacy services are not subject to VA’s toxic touch.

Another thought is that I find it intriguing to be asked ask for a date re service given.

Not altogether appropriate, particularly in this forum and public platform as it opens up pathways in VA Internal records and I’m fairly certain that’s not allowed under GDPR

Surely if data submitted in this review forum triggers VA to giving themselves ‘research permissions ’ into records they say have been destroyed within the appropriate time frame under the guise of ‘client satisfaction’ figures. A commercial imperative not a healthcare issue again Charity Commission may have a view. Let’s see.

Another little litigious tidbit with regards pernicious governance.

Sent an email and received an automated response telling me to fill out their online form. Did so and received another automated email to say someone would get back to me within 2 working days. It’s been a week and I’ve not heard anything. Doesn’t bode well.

Advocate didnt advocate for me, just agreed with other side so complete waste of my time and energy.
Complaint not dealt with in reasonable time, and is still outstanding
Request for all data held (foi request) handled with a level of incompetence that is astounding.
Avoid this organisation at all costs.

Response to reply. I have already made a complaint so you have my details. You've just not responded to it as I mentioned above. Thank you for confirming your level of competence is poor.

Response to reply #2.
So you don't know you have outstanding complaints? Your incompetence knows no bounds.

Reply to response #3
Pointless. I've complained. Your organisation haven't dealt with it.
Don't see the point in attempting any further with your organisation.

I was referred to voicability due to a high need of an advocate.
The first meeting was miles away,
The advocate didn't turn up until around 45 minutes later, and all I got offered was a second meeting closer.
The 2nd meeting I'm sat in a meeting room alone in bedford library
The advocate didn't turn up .
I have been here 30mins.
A waste of my time yet again.
Tired of so called organisations / charities that claim to help people who have disabilities but in reality do nothing in any way to help apart from inconvenience those with disabilities

A total waste of time. My "advocate", Clive did nothing other than a couple of encouraging phone calls, until he was somehow without a phone for THREE MONTHS. He expected me to email, despite it being a task in itself for me. When i did email i got no response.

I received precisely zero advocacy.

This organisation is the chosen provider of STATUTORY NHS complaints advocacy.

So, by definition, by not providing an effective advocacy service, they are in breach of legislation.

Took more than 3 weeks to reply to an email. Failed to turn up to a vital meeting. Avoid !