PHSO submission to the Neuberger review of the Liverpool care pathway

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman did not have the information requested.

Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,

Subject of this FOI Act Request: the PHSO report about Liverpool Care Pathway complaints, submitted to the Neuberger review in 2013.

In your submission to the Neuberger review (online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy... )you describe the methodology you used in producing a snapshhot of complaints received by you: my questions under the FOI relate to the approach you used.

Q.1. On page 2 of the above report, you state that "The methodology was formally approved by the Review Panel in March 2013".
a)Could you provide a copy or link to copies of mail, emails or other communications exchanged between the review panel , interested third parties and yourselves in the initial request for, proposal of methods and formal approval of your approach?
b) Could you supply the name(s) of review panel members or their delgates you discussed the matter with, formally and/or informally?

Q.2 Also on page 2, you state that "The
reviewstarted in March 2013 with 18 acute
hospital Trusts agreeing to participate
, 16 carrying out the review of recorded complaints and
two supplying best practice examples. "

a) can you tell me how these 18 sites were chosen? And
b)Please identify (i) all of the 16 who contributed data to the review, and (ii) the two who you say were charged with supplying 'best practice ' examples?

Q.3 Also on page 2, you stated:"Few complaints identified the LCP as a contributing factor (16 in total)"...and then state that in the rest of the report, you confine yourselves to an analysis of them alone.

a) can you confirm that use of the phrase 'liverpool care pathway' to search databases would have omitted complaints filed under 'end of life care', 'palliative care', and the actual figure must have been considerably higher?

Q4. On page 4 you make mention of '19 end of life categories' being assessed ...can you provide a full list of these please? And provide a date on which these oomplaints categories began to be used across the NHS.

Q5. On page 2, you stated "The participating
hospital Trusts reviewed all or a sample of identified complaints1,providing a total of 255 complaints"
a) Can you confirm that your methodology left the participating hospitals to decide for themselves which complaints they included in their sample?
b) Since this is the case, can you confirm that the participating hospitals were able to disregard a large number of complaints about the liverpool care pathway, using their own subjective choice, and thus introduces a level of bias into the Government's review of patient satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the Liverpool Care Pathway overall?

I trust you will consider it in the public interest for everyone to be able to assess how 'impartial' a Government review of a treatment/care pathway has been.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,
As above

foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.

show quoted sections

All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve
the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK
Government quality mark initiative for information security products and
services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk

[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

I'm afraid that it's no use using the phrase 'public interest' .
The PHSO does not understand - or apply - the term.

CA Purkis left an annotation ()

This should be good!

foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Dear Dr Lofthouse

Thank you for your email of 29 December 2013 in which you ask a number of questions relating to a submission to the Neuberger review.

However, the submission you have asked us to comment on was not PHSO’s and we do not hold any information about it.

It seems from the footnote on the first page of the submission that the paper may have been commissioned by the National Independent Review Panel of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient itself for delivery by the former National End of Life Care Programme (now under the auspices of NHS Improving Quality).

Under the circumstances you may wish to direct your questions to NHS Improving Quality. More information about them can be found here: http://www.nhsiq.nhs.uk/.

Yours sincerely

Luke Whiting
Head of FOI/DP

show quoted sections

All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK Government quality mark initiative for information security products and services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk

Dr Lofthouse left an annotation ()

So, the 'End of Life Care Network' was closed down after a decade, and all the members were re-employed at 'NHS Improving Quality'. Neuberger's'impartial' panel who were supposed to be looking into the performance of the 'End of Life Care network' basically commissioned the same people to investigate themselves.

Dr Lofthouse left an annotation ()

That seems far from 'impartial' to me.

Dr Lofthouse left an annotation ()

Oh, this stinks...allowing a DoH /NHS subcontracting ''partner'' who screws up big time to investigate the cock up themselves...then passing it off as an 'impartial review'!