Cases with missing or lost information

The request was partially successful.

Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,

I would like to see statistics on the number of cases/complaints you handle and the outcomes broken down based on the availability of records/information from the health organisation (hospital, GP, etc)

For each of the last 3 years :

-The total number of cases/complaints received.
-The total number of cases/complaints investigated.
- Of these the number of cases where the organisation :
1) Withheld some or all of the information
2) Stated to have no record of some or all of the information.
3) Stated that they had lost some or all of the information.
4) Stated that some or all of the information had been destroyed.

I would like to see reflected against each of these (total, 1,2 3 & 4) the outcomes of investigations.

I have tried to illustrate this for you below, however, if you require any further clarification please let me know.

2018
---------------------------------------------
Total cases X
-X outcome A
-X outcome B
-X outcome C
--------------------------------------------
1) Withheld info X
-X outcome A
-X outcome B
-X outcome C
-----------------------------------------
2) No Record X
-X outcome A
-X outcome B
-X outcome C
-------------------------------------
etc.

Yours faithfully,

Dan Bayley

InformationRights, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Dear Dan Bayley

PHSO reference R0000826
Acknowledgement of your request

Thank you for your email of 10th August 2019.

Your request will be handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Our response will be sent on or before 10th September 2019.

Regards,

Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
E: [email address]
W: www.ombudsman.org.uk

InformationRights, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Dear Dan Bayley

 

PHSO reference R0000826

Your request for information

 

Thank you for your correspondence of 10^th August 2019 in which you
requested information from the PHSO.

 

PHSO response

 

Total number of complaints for the last three years:

 

Complaints
received
2016 31,039
2017 32,693
2018 28,668

 

 

Total number of completed investigations for the last three years:

 

Investigations
completed
2016 4,331
2017 3,230
2018 1,786

 

 

PHSO complaint files contain a section called ‘complaint part’ which we
have searched for to locate any complaint parts listed as “lost
documents”. It produced the following results:

 

Completed
investigations
with a
Keyword/complaint
part of "lost
documents"
attached
2016 32
2017 11
2018 7

 

Please note we cannot be certain that this is exhaustive of all of PHSO’s
investigation cases which would come within the scope of your request, so
in order to answer questions 1) – 4) of your request would require a
manual search through the completed investigations.

 

Under section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 the PHSO is
allowed to refuse any request which exceeds the appropriate limit. The
appropriate limit is set in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 (‘the Fees Regulations’) at
£450 for the PHSO.

 

The Fees Regulations also specify that the cost of complying with a
request must be calculated at the rate of £25 per hour, meaning that
section 12(1) effectively imposes a time limit of 18 hours (or 1,080
minutes) to be spent doing the following activities:

·        determining whether the information is held

·        locating the information, or a document containing it

·        retrieving the information, or a document containing it

·        extracting the information from a document containing it. 

 

In the last three years PHSO has completed 9,347 investigations. In order
to comply with the request PHSO would need to determine whether an
investigation contained relevant information in six seconds. In order to
be sure beyond reasonable doubt would likely take five minutes per case,
as this should be sufficient to access the case, then read through the
complaint form, decision form, and final report.

 

Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 obligates PHSO to
provide advice and assistance where reasonable to do so, and in relation
to a section 12(1) refusal it means providing advice on how to reduce the
scope of the request so that information of relevance could be obtained.

 

Based on the time required to determine whether an investigation was
within the scope of your request, PHSO estimates that it could manually
search through 200 files within the appropriate limit.

 

Right of appeal

 

If you have any queries about this response, please contact the
Information Rights Team. Please remember to quote the reference number
above in any future communications. If you are unhappy with the service
you have received in relation to your request or wish to request an
internal review, please respond to this email and explain why you are
dissatisfied.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of your internal review, you may
apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office for a decision.
Generally, the Commissioner will not make a decision unless you have
exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the PHSO. The Information
Commissioner’s Office can be contacted at:

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

[1]https://ico.org.uk/

 

Regards,

 

Freedom of Information/Data Protection Team

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

E: [2][email address]

W: [3]www.ombudsman.org.uk

 

References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/
http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/