Complaints and review requests 2018/19
phsothefacts Pressure Group made this Rhyddid Gwybodaeth request to Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following assessment? How many reviews took place and how many were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following investigation? How many reviews took place and how many were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following resolution at assessment stage? How many reviews took place and how many were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of service complaints about PHSO service delivery and how many were upheld?
Can you also provide the same information for 2017/18 so that I can make comparisons.
Yours faithfully,
Della Reynolds
phsothefacts Pressure Group
Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,
I have had no acknowledgement or response to this request. Can you confirm that you are presently collating the information requested?
Yours faithfully,
Della Reynolds
phsothefacts Pressure Group
Thank you for contacting the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) Freedom of Information and Data Protection Team. This is to confirm we have received your request.
If you have made a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or Environment Information Regulations 2004, we will respond to your request within 20 working days in accordance with the statutory time frames set out in both Acts.
If you have made a request for personal information held by the PHSO, your request will be processed as a Subject Access Request under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 and will be responded to within one calendar month in accordance with the statutory time frame set out in the Act.
We may contact you before this time if we require further clarification or if we need to extend the time required to complete your request.
For Subject Access Requests, we will send any personal information via secure email, unless you instruct us differently. To access the information on the email we send, you will need to sign up to our secure email service. Details can be found on our website using the link below:
www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/being-open...
If you require us to post your personal information to you instead you will need to inform us of this and confirm your current address as soon as possible.
Dear Della Reynolds
We can confirm your request is being processed and your request reference number is R0000908. We have until 6 November to provide you with a response.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
W: www.ombudsman.org.uk
Dear Della Reynolds
RE: Your information request: R0000908
I write in response to your email dated 9 October 2019 requesting
information from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).
Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Your request:
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following
assessment? How many reviews took place and how many were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following
investigation? How many reviews took place and how many were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of review requests following
resolution at assessment stage? How many reviews took place and how many
were upheld.
For 2018/19 can you tell me the total number of service complaints about
PHSO service delivery and how many were upheld?
Can you also provide the same information for 2017/18 so that I can make
comparisons?
Response
1. 706 Review requests received regarding assessments for 2017/18. A
total of 8 assessment decisions were reviewed of which 2 were upheld.
591 Review requests received regarding assessments for 2018/19. A total of
38 assessment decisions were reviewed of which 22 were upheld.
2. 231 Review requests received regarding investigations for 2017/18. A
total of 55 investigation decisions were reviewed of which 27 were upheld.
148 Review requests received regarding investigations for 2018/19. A total
of 58 investigation decisions were reviewed of which 21 were upheld
3. 11 review requests received following resolution at assessment in
2017/18 none of these were accepted for review.
7 review requests received following resolution at assessment in 2018/19
none of these were accepted for review.
4. 1, 013 complaints received regarding PHSO service in 2017/18. A
total of 355 were upheld.
212 complaints received regarding PHSO service in 2018/19. A total of 147
were upheld.
Please be aware that the review numbers above reflect those review
requests we can associate with assessment/investigation stages. In each
year there are also a number of cases recorded which were worked on
previous CMS (Visual Files) and which we are not able to break down by
casework stage.
If you believe we have made an error in the way I have processed your
information request, it is open to you to request an internal review.
You can do this by writing to us by post or by email to
[1][Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman request email]. You will need to specify that the
nature of the issue is and we can consider the matter further. Beyond
that, it is open to you to complain to the Information Commissioner’s
Office ([2]www.ico.org.uk).
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
W: [3]www.ombudsman.org.uk
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Dear InformationRights,
thank you for this information which is very useful. Given your final proviso can you give me the total number of review requests (not broken into categories) for 2017/18 and 2018/19?
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds
phsothefacts Pressure Group
Thank you for contacting the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) Freedom of Information and Data Protection Team. This is to confirm we have received your request.
If you have made a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or Environment Information Regulations 2004, we will respond to your request within 20 working days in accordance with the statutory time frames set out in both Acts.
If you have made a request for personal information held by the PHSO, your request will be processed as a Subject Access Request under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 and will be responded to within one calendar month in accordance with the statutory time frame set out in the Act.
We may contact you before this time if we require further clarification or if we need to extend the time required to complete your request.
For Subject Access Requests, we will send any personal information via secure email, unless you instruct us differently. To access the information on the email we send, you will need to sign up to our secure email service. Details can be found on our website using the link below:
www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/being-open...
If you require us to post your personal information to you instead you will need to inform us of this and confirm your current address as soon as possible.
Dear Della Reynolds
Thank you for your reply.
We publish the total number of review requests completed within our Annual
Report and Accounts therefore you will find this information within the
respective documents for 2017/18 and 2018/19. I have provided links below:
See page 41:
[1]https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/defau...
See page 28:
[2]https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/defau...
If this is not the information you are requesting please advise and we can
log a further request for you.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
W: [3]www.ombudsman.org.uk
Follow us on
[4]fb [5]twitter [6]linkedin
Dear InformationRights,
Thank you for the links to the Annual Reports but I could not find the information I requested there. I did not ask for the total number of review requests completed but the total number of review requests made to PHSO in both 2017/18 and 2018/19.
These are very different figures as many review requests are denied review. Please supply.
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds.
phsothefacts Pressure Group
Thank you for contacting the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) Freedom of Information and Data Protection Team. This is to confirm we have received your request.
If you have made a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or Environment Information Regulations 2004, we will respond to your request within 20 working days in accordance with the statutory time frames set out in both Acts.
If you have made a request for personal information held by the PHSO, your request will be processed as a Subject Access Request under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 and will be responded to within one calendar month in accordance with the statutory time frame set out in the Act.
We may contact you before this time if we require further clarification or if we need to extend the time required to complete your request.
For Subject Access Requests, we will send any personal information via secure email, unless you instruct us differently. To access the information on the email we send, you will need to sign up to our secure email service. Details can be found on our website using the link below:
www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/being-open...
If you require us to post your personal information to you instead you will need to inform us of this and confirm your current address as soon as possible.
Dear Della Reynolds
RE: Your information request: R0000949
I write in response to your email dated 28 1 November 2019 requesting
information from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).
Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Your request:
Follow up to R0000908:
Thank you for the links to the Annual Reports but I could not find the
information I requested there. I did not ask for the total number of
review requests completed but the total number of review requests made to
PHSO in both 2017/18 and 2018/19.
These are very different figures as many review requests are denied
review. Please supply.
Response
In 2017/18, PHSO received 1,724 review requests. In 2018/19, PHSO received
863 review requests.
If you believe we have made an error in the way I have processed your
information request, it is open to you to request an internal review.
You can do this by writing to us by post or by email to
[1][Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman request email]. You will need to specify that the
nature of the issue is and we can consider the matter further. Beyond
that, it is open to you to complain to the Information Commissioner’s
Office ([2]www.ico.org.uk).
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
W: [3]www.ombudsman.org.uk
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman request email]
2. http://www.ico.org.uk/
3. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/
Gadawodd J Roberts anodiad ()
I too have had some difficulty with the figures disclosed by the PHSO over the years.
'Volume of review requests" – 1,724 (info. disclosed to NW)
'Review requests received regarding assessment' – 706
'Review requests received regarding investigations' - 231
It would seem that 787 review requests regarded neither an assessment nor an investigation [1,724 – (706 + 231)].
If there is a discrepancy in the figures, it wouldn't be the first time this has occured in relation to review figures provided by the PHSO:
"It may be helpful if I explain why there is a discrepancy in these figures."
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/q...
Here is some information on a striking drop in 'post review' correspondence that occured some years ago:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...
More confusion with PHSO figures:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/d...
And more:
"Unfortunately in my last response to you (FDN-240645) I provided you with incorrect information regarding complaints about our service. I am sorry for any confusion this has caused. I will explain the error and provide you with the correct information."
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Dear InformationRights,
I have to agree with other postings on this thread that PHSO statistics cannot be relied upon for consistency. Within the annual report there are often discrepancies between pages and FOI requests will often turn up data which fails to correspond with previous data.
At the last PACAC scrutiny meeting PHSO management were keen to tell the committee that there had been a significant reduction in review requests - giving the impression that people were becoming more satisfied with the service. Certainly the figures as they stand (1,724 to 863) shows a 50% decrease in review requests in one year, which is a significant improvement. An almost unbelievable improvement. But how much is this down to the levels of satisfaction rising and how much is it down to the decision at some point early in 2019 to reduce the time to make a review request from three months to one month? PHSO do not automatically send out the evidence relied upon with the final report. This must be requested - taking longer than the one month deadline to put in a detailed request which matches their criteria for review. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...
Once again we see sleight of hand at work. Closing down access to justice and having denied people a right to reply using this as a means of boosting the notion of public confidence. We are all alert to the 'fake news' agenda now and PHSO cannot continue to get away with manipulations of the facts.
Yours sincerely,
phsothefacts Pressure Group
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Gadawodd Nicholas Wheatley anodiad ()
The stats they have provided for 2017/18 are very different from the stats they provided last year which can be found here
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/5...
It shows 817 requests for assessment reviews and 549 requests for investigation reviews. It makes you wonder how reliable their stats are.