Accountability

If using the number of complaints the PHSO previously had brought to her in the old 3 tier system, 20k from the 140k brought to the then Healthcare Commission. Under the new two tier process (its not a system as we were not consulted on the HC closure!) the PHSO currently reviews less that 2% of complaints, has never reopened a 'reconsidered complaint' and yet I believe costs us the tax-payer in excess of £34m per annum. WHAT FOR???

Ironic comment taken from the PHSO Annual Report:
How much injustice could be avoided if public services learnt to respond to complaints as an opportunity to put things right and to learn from what went wrong?

ABSOLUTELY then Walk the Talk please!

Interesting answer but in reality there is no real accountability. Producing annual & other reports and spin documents 'in house' does not make them accountable. There needs to be an independent audit their work and statistics for true accountability. Not self assessment.

I believe we should consider a fully accountable,totally independent one stop complaints system that encompasses an independent audit annually.
The PHSO in-house audits and reports as recognized by A.Johnson (thank you!) are about as telling as the PHSO Principles, which as left unimplemented, are also just words on paper! FACT: Using the figures of 140,000 NHS Complaints previously brought before the Healthcare Commission (when we had a three tier complaints system),of these approx 20,000 were escalated to the PHSO. Now under the two tier complaints process, the PHSO reviews less than 2% of complaints, thus leaving over 98% of complaints unresolved,has never investigated a 'reconsidered' complaint yet costs us the tax-payer, in excess of £34m per annum for WHAT?
Overview and Scrutiny Committees (OSC's)are not seemingly involved in Overview and Scrutiny of hospitals with Foundation Trust status so therefore we have to either rely on Care Quality Commissions registration and adherence to action plans after investigations or the Trust's senior management integrity aka Mid-Staffordshire/Maidstone/Milton Keynes/West London Mental Health Trust/South Essex Partnership Trust(Google search all for further info).

But as OSC's always admitted that they didn't have the knowledge to challenge the HCC self-assessments anyway so no real loss. Most worrying is lack of teeth at the CQC is sending everything around the same ineffectual loop once again however.

Accountability with clear statutory powers please!

I believe PHSO,Ann Abrahams has some accountability to the Parliamentary Public Administration Select Committee.

The Chair of this Parliamentary Select Committee is Bernard Jenkins MP and his contact email is jenkinbc@parliament.uk.

If you have concerns re PHSO I believe you can take these to his Committee.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/commit...

Check out this link rePASC meetings with PHSO http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/52..., who has I understand has offered her resignation http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/med...

Accountability?

No 'Report' nor any 'explanation' of refusal to act, is good enough.

1. Each wrong done to each person, needs to be put right,
2. to reflect on the person/people who did the wrong,
3. to set right the damage done to 'patients'
4. to counter the hatred of ordinary people for the rotten mistreatment which has thus far been the norm,
5. to reassure the public that those who have deliberately harmed will be struck off, sacked, jailed where necessary
6. to foster future reason to trust, 'health' workers, who do th job properly, trustworthily, with the confidence of patients and relatives/friends.

Anything less than full ACCOUNTABILITY is just not good enough.

ACCOUNTABILITY
A. The most ACCOUNTABLE people are the most senior people. It is they who should first of all be sacked, investigated, jailed, when things go dramatically wrong.

B. Trainers and supervisors and Team Leaders are also all ACCOUNTABLE people, who must be brought to account fully for the wrongs of all people who work under their remit.

C. Employees - especially 'professionals' - who work with patients, need to take full responsibility for their own actions. That is their ACCOUNTABILITY.

There should be no leeway.

What is certain is that those people, at all levels, who have thus far done the job which is needed, to help patients, have been (thus far) thoroughly let down, by the TOTAL LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY of others, and of the SYSTEM.

i. As the daughter of an old man, who was deliberately killed in Doncaster, when he had not been dying

ii. As the daughter of an old woman who would at this moment be dead, had the system been allowed to deal as it had wished

iii. As the grandmother of a disabled child, who has been unlawfully and quite unnecessarily drugged, for no better reason that that he was disabled

I state that I have the right to expect that no-one else will attack my family.. and that those who try to, will feel my wrath.

Following the Health Select Committee Report on Complaints and Litigation, published on 28th June....it appears there are some fundamental errors re PHSO in the final Report.

"Comments on Fundamental errors in the Health Select Committee’s Complaints and Litigation Report.

Q: With reference to pages 12-15 of the Health Select Committee Report into Complaints and Litigation , I would be very grateful if someone could explain to me how "the prospect of a worthwhile outcome" has its origins in the Health Service Commissioners Act, as the HSWC report would have it. By my reading, this Act contains no such provision but gives the Ombudsman wide-ranging discretion, which the Ombudsman has personally chosen to use in order to enforce criteria which she/ her predecessors / invented.

A.The information I have had from the HSC is:
“You have rightly identified that the prospect of a worthwhile outcome is an internal test used by the Ombudsman. The statutory basis for this is in the discretionary powers given to that office in the Health Service Commissioners Act. This is an error in the report arising from oral evidence that was somewhat unclear.(Bearing in mind the HSC Report’s findings of “NHS Complaints system is not working!” its most worrying that HSC were left confused by PHSO too!)

Comment: I believe, this is a very fundamental error which undermines (a) the whole thrust of a large section of the report and (b) Mr Dorrell's published comments. It makes a nonsense of many of the report's conclusions and wetly lets the PHSO off the hook for her disgracefully deficient oversight of the NHS.

I now trust that the error will be corrected, and the associated implications examined, with all due publicity.

I also can't seem find Volume Three of the report on the HSC website.

I received report 1 & 2 of the healcare meeting where is the 3rd report which mentions in report 2 there is one?