Written evidence submitted by PHSO The Facts (HSO0007)
Questions to PASC for Monday 10th November 2014
Submitted by the PHSO Pressure Group
In a recent press release http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/news-centre/press-releases/2014/ombudsman-service-to-radically-change-in-modernisation-drive PHSO stated that,
“The first phase of the modernisation drive focused on delivering what people told the Ombudsman Service they wanted – more investigations. It investigated six times more complaints in 2013-14 than the previous year – 2,199 cases compared to 384 in 2012-13 – and halved the time it takes to do an investigation.”
There have been well-publicised concerns regarding the ‘quality’ of the investigation process, (Morrish family) as highlighted by the Patients Association in a recent press release (18.10.14)
“The Patients Association has worked with many families who have been failed by the quality of NHS investigations following serious harm or the preventable death of a loved one. Many families who find themselves in this situation turn to the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), the organisation that has the power to independently investigate where the NHS has failed to do so. In far too many cases the PHSO has also failed to investigate, and when it does, the investigations appear to be light touch, conducted at arm’s length and biased in favour of the systems being investigated.”
Q1. What steps have PHSO taken to ensure that they are able to deliver six times more complaints in half the time without compromising quality and in-depth review?
At the recent Westminster Briefing conference looking at NHS Complaint handling http://www.westminster-briefing.com/fileadmin/westminster-briefing/Agendas/AGENDA_-_NHS_Complaints.pdf
Sally Sykes from PHSO presented the following slide.
It is our understanding that all elements within the ‘third phase’ require changes to legislation. These changes are currently under discussion with the Cabinet Office as part of their inquiry into complaint handling and the Ombudsman landscape.
Q.2 Does Dame Julie Mellor have prior knowledge of the outcome of the current Cabinet Office inquiry, enabling her to confidently adopt a policy for which they presently have no remit?
The recent PHSO staff survey http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/26765/5252-PHSO-People-Survey-2013-debrief-report-ALL-STRANDS.pdf shows low staff morale and under the new initiative only 30% of staff agree that PHSO is delivering what its customers need. There is also a high staff turnover rate of 21.3% as revealed in this FOI. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/missing_data_from_201314_annual#incoming-578670
Q.3 Did PHSO put into place sufficient front-line resources to deliver the new business initiative ‘more impact for more people’ given that in the Netherlands 70% of staff carry out investigations, whereas in the UK it is approximately 30% of staff?