Your Boards handling of ' The Wiltshire Report ' ( 30 social workers Whistleblowing about alleged Falsification / Alteration of Patients Records, at the Board Meeting on 30 10 13

Dear Julie Benfell -Information Governance Manager - Corporate Affairs Team, Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, Chippenham Headquarters
Following the eventual release of the ' Wiltshire Report' to me after you sought guidance from the Information Commissioner this time, may I see the guidance you were offered by him a year ago when I first asked for this document ?
May I ask too, where your board were late in posting the papers of Wednesdays meeting ( not available on Monday when I looked ) on the Internet as you usually do a week before meetings - what documents you hold indicating the reason for the delay.
A number of press were present at the meeting,and I understand the BBC had been in touch with the trust that morning about the ' Whistleblowing Social Workers' report about AWP. On the web agenda on the day public questions were due to be heard at 10 .35 am, and I wish to see the decision arrived at by the board that resulted in public questions being commenced earlier without notice at 10 .20 am, when myself and other members of the public were still arriving for the 10 .35 public questions slot ? I felt the board treated me aggressively at that meeting - not in the way they should treat a mentally ill patient of your trust, especially one who has been repeatedly damaged by your actions. May I have an accurate recording of the public questions section of that meeting please - either on CD , failing which if no recording was made, the transcript taken by your note taker please. I asked a couple of questions about considerable irregularities extending over a 27 months period now within my own records, and the trusts ongoing cover up of the truth. I asked if ALL patients who MIGHT have been affected by what has been identified as going on had been contacted and offered a copy of their records - I did not get an answer - so I ask for that information via the FOI route please ? To my surprise, a gentleman who had just arrived asked a question ( he was a carer ) stating his partners records had been altered and falsified, stated he had EARLY IN THIS YEAR asked for a full copy of his partners records, some arrived in a torn envelope - so he contacted AWP who he said stated without hesitation he would be sent a fresh copy - he said he is still waiting! He said despite a number of calls to the trust,and writing letters, he still did not have the records he had waited many months for - but fairly recently - Hazel Watson - Director of Nursing had written to him as ' Caldicott Guardian ' asking him to return the records originally sent to him. I asked the Board why AWP had asked for records supplied earlier to be returned - and the answer given by Mr Tulley (I believe?) was it was a requirement of the Caldicott Principles that they MUST be returned BEFORE a fresh set of data/records can be supplied. I challenged this, as I had recently read the 'Caldicott Principles' and guidance regarding my own records, he stated they had changed recently. I disagreed with him as I had read them in the past week, but as a patient, I would expect him to be more knowledgeable than me - a patient - when answering a patients questions and advising the board on these matters as your CEO, may I ask you to provide me with the actual Caldicott Principles and guidance, clearly highlighting for me please the sections that explain that a Subject Access Requestor under the Data Protection Act, and a Medical Records requestor to return all copies of records previously supplied to them ? I felt Mr Tulley was making it up as he went and told him so ! I have found it necessary to use the FOIA to try to get information from your trust as you rarely provide proper answers to questions I ask about, or answer to something entirely different, or often just ignore my letters altogether which I find harmful and distressing. I had empathy with another patient who attended a board meeting to tell you he had written FOURTEEN letters to your trust but none had received any response - that didn't appear in your board minutes either ! I did ask Mr Tulley in correspondence if the gentleman ( a patient )had received an apology and responses, but he declined to answer me. I was very disappointed, in light of your Chairs speech earlier this year in response to another report, when he indicated the trust MUST become more open and transparent and make other significant improvements he individually identified ( It appears in a vast majority of cases to be all talk and little action though? ). The questions were flying about the Wiltshire Report,and related matters, when Mr Lee O'Bryan - non exec director of 27 months with your trust butted in trying to bring to a halt the questions being asked by a patient and a representative of a patient that were of a very serious nature - especially for the patients ! and stating there were ways of stopping the requests for information I was making! I was disappointed the chair did not disagree with him, or state we MUST put the patient first in all we do, following his earlier speech at board, and candour was talked about extensively a lot earlier this year - again now forgotten it appears ? Equally disappointing was that Hazel Watson - Director of Nursing and Caldicott Guardian for AWP neither corrected Mr Tulley in respect of Caldicott Principles and also failed to support openness and transparency within your organisation ! I find to this day, the culture of AWP is pre occupied with targets and systems with little focus on patients, there is a threatening performance management process, " AWP is unlikely to be processing information in accordance with the Data Protection Act ", the Board remains and has a " trust culture" " that is a target driven,top down, centralist, bureaucratic and dictating" and, 15 months on from the report little has changed that has been identified within the report, and the earlier Sutherland report that also identified very similar failings. A trust STILL not fit for purpose I think ! So please provide documents from the Information Commissioner or the FOIA itself, or indeed elsewhere that support PRECISELY what Mr Lee O'Bryan stated in respect of the number of FOI requests I make, as from decisions made by the ICO within recent months that ive read and understand, it appears to me I am well within my Rights to make the requests as I do, and I feel I was being bullied into submission by Mr Lee O'Bryan, especially when he forcably interjected and prevented me from asking further questions, and making statements that would suggest I was not acting wholly in compliance with the FOIA. What is the point of having a questions from the public section, where just one forceful board member prevents patients from asking questions, and attempts to prevent them from getting their Rights under the FOIA ? Yet another form of abuse of me as a patient ! The fact WILTSHIRE fails to acknowledge or do something about, is that if necessary letters to you were answered fully and properly, if I was receiving treatment or support 27 months after diagnosis, and if I could see the Law was being complied with and accurate records being kept, I wouldn't need to make even one FOI request would I ?
Yours faithfully,

Steven King

freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST), Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr King

Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information request:

Yours sincerely

Julie Benfell
Information Governance Manager

Corporate Affairs Team
Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust Headquarters
Jenner House
Langley Park
Chippenham
SN15 1GG

Tel: 01249 468055

You Matter, We Care

Don’t Ignore your Mental Health – click here to visit our website

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a significant provider of mental health services for people living in Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Swindon, South Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as specialist services to people from across the South West

www.awp.nhs.uk/confidence
________________________________________
From: Steven King [[FOI #183171 email]]
Sent: 02 November 2013 17:42
To: freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST)
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Your Boards handling of ' The Wiltshire Report ' ( 30 social workers Whistleblowing about alleged Falsification / Alteration of Patients Records, at the Board Meeting on 30 10 13

Dear Julie Benfell -Information Governance Manager - Corporate Affairs Team, Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, Chippenham Headquarters
Following the eventual release of the ' Wiltshire Report' to me after you sought guidance from the Information Commissioner this time, may I see the guidance you were offered by him a year ago when I first asked for this document ?
May I ask too, where your board were late in posting the papers of Wednesdays meeting ( not available on Monday when I looked ) on the Internet as you usually do a week before meetings - what documents you hold indicating the reason for the delay.
A number of press were present at the meeting,and I understand the BBC had been in touch with the trust that morning about the ' Whistleblowing Social Workers' report about AWP. On the web agenda on the day public questions were due to be heard at 10 .35 am, and I wish to see the decision arrived at by the board that resulted in public questions being commenced earlier without notice at 10 .20 am, when myself and other members of the public were still arriving for the 10 .35 public questions slot ? I felt the board treated me aggressively at that meeting - not in the way they should treat a mentally ill patient of your trust, especially one who has been repeatedly damaged by your actions. May I have an accurate recording of the public questions section of that meeting please - either on CD , failing which if no recording was made, the transcript taken by your note taker please. I asked a couple of questions about considerable irregularities extending over a 27 months period
now within my own records, and the trusts ongoing cover up of the truth. I asked if ALL patients who MIGHT have been affected by what has been identified as going on had been contacted and offered a copy of their records - I did not get an answer - so I ask for that information via the FOI route please ? To my surprise, a gentleman who had just arrived asked a question ( he was a carer ) stating his partners records had been altered and falsified, stated he had EARLY IN THIS YEAR asked for a full copy of his partners records, some arrived in a torn envelope - so he contacted AWP who he said stated without hesitation he would be sent a fresh copy - he said he is still waiting! He said despite a number of calls to the trust,and writing letters, he still did not have the records he had waited many months for - but fairly recently - Hazel Watson - Director of Nursing had written to him as ' Caldicott Guardian ' asking him to return the records originally sent to him. I asked th
e Board why AWP had asked for records supplied earlier to be returned - and the answer given by Mr Tulley (I believe?) was it was a requirement of the Caldicott Principles that they MUST be returned BEFORE a fresh set of data/records can be supplied. I challenged this, as I had recently read the 'Caldicott Principles' and guidance regarding my own records, he stated they had changed recently. I disagreed with him as I had read them in the past week, but as a patient, I would expect him to be more knowledgeable than me - a patient - when answering a patients questions and advising the board on these matters as your CEO, may I ask you to provide me with the actual Caldicott Principles and guidance, clearly highlighting for me please the sections that explain that a Subject Access Requestor under the Data Protection Act, and a Medical Records requestor to return all copies of records previously supplied to them ? I felt Mr Tulley was making it up as he went and told him so ! I
have found it necessary to use the FOIA to try to get information from your trust as you rarely provide proper answers to questions I ask about, or answer to something entirely different, or often just ignore my letters altogether which I find harmful and distressing. I had empathy with another patient who attended a board meeting to tell you he had written FOURTEEN letters to your trust but none had received any response - that didn't appear in your board minutes either ! I did ask Mr Tulley in correspondence if the gentleman ( a patient )had received an apology and responses, but he declined to answer me. I was very disappointed, in light of your Chairs speech earlier this year in response to another report, when he indicated the trust MUST become more open and transparent and make other significant improvements he individually identified ( It appears in a vast majority of cases to be all talk and little action though? ). The questions were flying about the Wiltshire Repo
rt,and related matters, when Mr Lee O'Bryan - non exec director of 27 months with your trust butted in trying to bring to a halt the questions being asked by a patient and a representative of a patient that were of a very serious nature - especially for the patients ! and stating there were ways of stopping the requests for information I was making! I was disappointed the chair did not disagree with him, or state we MUST put the patient first in all we do, following his earlier speech at board, and candour was talked about extensively a lot earlier this year - again now forgotten it appears ? Equally disappointing was that Hazel Watson - Director of Nursing and Caldicott Guardian for AWP neither corrected Mr Tulley in respect of Caldicott Principles and also failed to support openness and transparency within your organisation ! I find to this day, the culture of AWP is pre occupied with targets and systems with little focus on patients, there is a threatening performance
management process, " AWP is unlikely to be processing information in accordance with the Data Protection Act ", the Board remains and has a " trust culture" " that is a target driven,top down, centralist, bureaucratic and dictating" and, 15 months on from the report little has changed that has been identified within the report, and the earlier Sutherland report that also identified very similar failings. A trust STILL not fit for purpose I think ! So please provide documents from the Information Commissioner or the FOIA itself, or indeed elsewhere that support PRECISELY what Mr Lee O'Bryan stated in respect of the number of FOI requests I make, as from decisions made by the ICO within recent months that ive read and understand, it appears to me I am well within my Rights to make the requests as I do, and I feel I was being bullied into submission by Mr Lee O'Bryan, especially when he forcably interjected and prevented me from asking further questions, and making statements
that would suggest I was not acting wholly in compliance with the FOIA. What is the point of having a questions from the public section, where just one forceful board member prevents patients from asking questions, and attempts to prevent them from getting their Rights under the FOIA ? Yet another form of abuse of me as a patient ! The fact WILTSHIRE fails to acknowledge or do something about, is that if necessary letters to you were answered fully and properly, if I was receiving treatment or support 27 months after diagnosis, and if I could see the Law was being complied with and accurate records being kept, I wouldn't need to make even one FOI request would I ?
Yours faithfully,

Steven King

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show quoted sections

Dear Julie Benfell, Information Governance Manager, Corporate Affairs Team, Avon & Wiltshire MHP NHS T,

I write to you in respect of FOI / 1041 , a Freedom of Information request sent via whatdotheyknow by email to yourselves on 02 11 2013 and acknowledged by yourself on 04 11 13.
A note has been placed on my request by whatdotheyknow stating ' By Law, Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership should normally have responded promptly and by 29th November 2013 ', and your acknowledgement letter confirms you will respond within 20 working days. As last Friday was the 20th working day, and now it is Monday evening 02nd December - I regret to note AWP MHP NHS T does not appear to have complied with the Law or its Statutory duties to me ? I am further disappointed you have not contacted me to apologise for your delay in responding or to offer any explanation - and I ask you to explain your failure at your earliest opportunity please. I note your board met around the middle of last week when their response would have been discussed and agreed ?
Yours sincerely,

Steven King

freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST), Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr King
 
Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Yours sincerely
 

Julie Benfell

Information Governance Manager

 

Corporate Affairs Team

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust Headquarters

Jenner House

Langley Park

Chippenham

SN15 1GG

 

Tel: 01249 468055

 

You Matter, We Care

 

Don’t Ignore your Mental Health – click here to visit our website

 

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a
significant provider of mental health services for people living in Bath
and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Swindon, South
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as specialist services to people
from across the South West

                                                                                       

show quoted sections

freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST), Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr King
 
Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Yours sincerely
 

Julie Benfell

Information Governance Manager

 

Corporate Affairs Team

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust Headquarters

Jenner House

Langley Park

Chippenham

SN15 1GG

 

Tel: 01249 468055

 

You Matter, We Care

 

Don’t Ignore your Mental Health – click here to visit our website

 

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a
significant provider of mental health services for people living in Bath
and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Swindon, South
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as specialist services to people
from across the South West

                                                                                       

show quoted sections

Dear Julie Benfell, Information Governance Manager, Corporate Team AWP MHP NHS T,
I write again in respect of FOI 1041 - but did not see any apology for your exceeding the Statutory timescale to provide your response, I trust you will now put this right and explain clearly ALL the reasons for your delay that exceeded FOIA time limits ?
I regret your response letter sent today, the 22 nd working day I believe ?, does not provide the information I had asked for, you misquote me under your heading " You requested ", your response was not what I had asked for , and you claim most of the information does not exist although I know it certainly does. I note regarding the ICO documents and FOIA documents I asked about in respect of Mr Lee O'Bryan statement have not been provided, whilst your following paragraph referring to section 14 appears to be an irrelevent generalisation as it does not appear to apply to this or any other section of my request? The link you provided is not 'live', although the information I requested DOES NOT appear within the Board minutes as they are not a verbatum record of what was said - the notetakers record SHOULD show what was asked and the response given - I thought I made that clear ? I therefore ask you to re consider your limited and unhelpful response by way of an internal review please at your earliest opportunity. If the person handling my review also does not understand what I am asking for, maybe they will email me for clarification rather than providing a further unsatisfactory response. For clarity, you have sent me an acknowledgement for an internal review request BEFORE I even sent it - will explain why you decided to acknowledge an internal review request BEFORE it was requested ?

Yours sincerely,

Steven King

freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST), Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr King
 
Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Yours sincerely
 

Julie Benfell

Information Governance Manager

 

Corporate Affairs Team

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust Headquarters

Jenner House

Langley Park

Chippenham

SN15 1GG

 

Tel: 01249 468055

 

You Matter, We Care

 

Don’t Ignore your Mental Health – click here to visit our website

 

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a
significant provider of mental health services for people living in Bath
and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Swindon, South
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as specialist services to people
from across the South West

                                                                                       

show quoted sections

Dear ' company secretary ' AWP MHP NHS T,
Thank you for carrying out what you see as a review of the handling of my FOI request - which is clearly not fit for purpose. I feel your response here along with other responses made by this trust to requestors made during 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 clearly demonstrates the independent report description of your ' trust culture to be centralist, top down, and target driven, bureaucratic and controlling ' along with other less than complimentary findings that appear to still exist to this day ?

Yours sincerely,

Steven King

freedomofinformation (AVON AND WILTSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP NHS TRUST), Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

1 Attachment

Dear Mr King
 
Please find attached correspondence regarding your Freedom of Information
request:
 
Yours sincerely
 

Julie Benfell

Information Governance Manager

 

Corporate Affairs Team

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust Headquarters

Jenner House

Langley Park

Chippenham 

SN15 1GG

 

Tel: 01249 468055

 

You Matter, We Care

 

Don’t Ignore your Mental Health – click here to visit our website

 

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) is a
significant provider of mental health services for people living in Bath
and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Swindon, South
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, as well as specialist services to people
from across the South West

                                                                                       

show quoted sections