Wednesday 20 November 2013

Welcome to SPSO NEWS. In this edition you will find the Ombudsman's latest decisions on complaints about public services and commentary on recent and future activities. 



I laid two investigation reports about health boards before the Scottish Parliament today.  I also laid a report on 53 decisions about all of the sectors under our remit.  All the reports can be read on the ‘Our findings’ section of our website at www.spso.org.uk/our-findings and via links within this email.
 

Overview

Assuring quality
Last month, I was invited to give a presentation to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) about our casework quality assurance (QA) process. This is the process we have developed for assuring ourselves, the public and other stakeholders that the decisions we come to are the right ones, by providing demonstrable evidence of the soundness of these decisions. The SPCB’s invitation followed a presentation I gave to the National Seminar of the European Network of Ombudsmen in Dublin after our QA process was selected by our international peers as an example of innovation in Ombudsman offices.

I was pleased on both occasions to have the opportunity to explain our process and to outline other factors that feed into providing a quality service, including organisation design, process efficiency, service delivery and learning. My philosophy is that quality is built through an integrated programme of continuous service improvement and that ultimately, to deliver quality, our actions must be driven by what matters to our customers and whether or not we are adding value for them and for public services.

Sounding board initiatives
One way we are building quality is by increasing our engagement with the general public and local authorities. We have set up sounding boards to help us understand what people are looking for from us, how we can improve our service to them, and how we can help service providers get things right first time, or where they do not, to help them learn from their mistakes.

Our customer sounding board, made up of representatives of different public service user groups, will meet for the first time next month.  I see the sounding board as a key contributor to our review of our customers’ journey, helping us ensure that we continue to build clarity, transparency, timeliness and empathy into our service for complainants.  I also want the sounding board to help us in our goal of raising wider awareness of our service, and to look at issues such as how we gather evidence and our powers of investigation. The members include representatives from Citizens Advice Scotland, the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance, the Tenant Participation Advisory Service, a Prison Visiting Committee, Patient Opinion, Alliance Scotland and Consumer Futures.

We have also begun discussions with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) about setting up a sounding board for local authorities. This will further our aim of ensuring that service providers are the owners of how complaints are handled, learning is shared and improvements are made.

Housing and prisons complaints reports
Since my last e-newsletter, we have published two further annual complaints reports, about the housing and prisons issues that we considered in 2012/13.  Like the other sectoral reports we have published, they contain:

• key complaints figures
• issues and themes arising from the complaints we see
• how we share learning and how we work with other organisations
• an overview of the relevant activities of our complaints standards authority
• our policy engagement.

To read the reports and access other sectoral information, visit http://www.spso.org.uk/sector-specific-information.  To view our annual statistics, visit http://www.spso.org.uk/statistics.

Prison complaints proposals
We responded to the Justice Committee’s call for evidence on the Public Services Reform (Prison Visiting Committees) (Scotland) Order 2014.  In general, we welcomed the proposal to provide lay monitors with a role in complaints handling, building on the existing role of the Prison Visiting Committees.  However, we said that further clarity may be needed to ensure that roles in complaints handling are defined well and work together, rather than separately, and that the existing process for handling complaints, particularly that of the Scottish Prison Service, remains the principal avenue through which prisoners can raise complaints.  We also propose that there is greater clarity on the status of reports and recommendations.  We highlight the importance of transparency of decisions and consistency in what is reported, and say that publishing complaints outcomes provides great benefit in terms of analysing trends and identifying improvements and should be given further consideration.  Read our full response here.

Read my Overview and summary of today's investigation reports here, or by accessing the links below.

Investigation Reports

"My medical adviser, a consultant in respiratory medicine who provided independent advice on the complaint described ‘a string of failures on the part of the board and specifically on the part of the radiology department’ in diagnosing Mr C’s cancer." 

Delay in diagnosis; communication; policy/administration; complaints handling
Lanarkshire NHS Board (Ref: 201203086)

> Read full report (PDF)
> Read summary

"During his second admission, Mr A suffered further falls and fractured his hip.  Mr A died in hospital nine days after surgery on his hip and, because of a delay in the death certificate being issued, funeral arrangements had to be postponed, further adding to his family’s distress." 

Care of the elderly; clinical treatment; delay in medical assessment; communication
Fife NHS Board (Ref: 201202679)

> Read full report (PDF)
> Read summary

Complaints Standards Authority - monthly update