Hands off our Ombudsman and other Big Soc Stuff

Hands off our Ombudsman we say. The Public Administration Select Committee has taken a look at the Big Society and is not sure what it sees. The Big Society seems to have become a curiously insubstantial reincarnation of the wooly mammoth – is it real or just a ghost that haunts the cracks and... 
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Ombudsman Direct – the preferred citizen solution

Should people be able to take their complaints direct to the Parliamentary Ombudsman without bothering with their MP? That is the question in a new consultation from Ann Abraham’s office. Our view? ‘If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Get out of the way’.... 
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Signing up for Complaints

Just before the nation closed down for an extended period to enjoy a heady cocktail mix of secular and religious celebration, eight of the G&G (the Great and the Good) as seen from the perspective of the corner of the universe we work in, signed up to a declaration that meaningful, comparable complaints... 
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2011 and 20 posts later- the Spring Newsletter

Now the news is that the public and patients were pretty satisfied with the NHS as it was. Ben Page of MORI was already making the point in July last year that the Ipsos MORI Issues Index back in 2002 showed the NHS  as the top concern of more than 70% of us with only 10% of us worried about the economy. ... 
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The Heart of the Matter

“Dismissive attitude of staff, a disregard for process and procedure and an apparent indifference of NHS staff to deplorable standards of care”" concluded England’s Health Ombudsman Ann Abraham in her Office’s February report into ten cases involving older people. The stories... 
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Complaints – Despair, Specs and Teeth

Coming in Threes You know how it is – life is ok for a while and everything more or less works. Some minor niggles, something goes wrong perhaps but it is soon fixed or can be parked for the future and then bang! like the proverbial No 11 bus they all come at once. Banging our Heads against Banks The... 
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Early Apples – an early harvest after a glorious summer of posts

Boundless Blogs We may not have published a newsletter since June but the blogs abound. Over the summer, the creativity and productivity of Partners ( and one in particular – the indefatigable Andrew Craig)  has produced a bumper crop of posts addressing the topical, the public and the personal... 
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Ombuds Off – Merricks CBE Moves On

Walter Merricks told me at the end of June saying that he was moving on after 13 years an Ombudsman – 10 at the Financial Services Ombudsman Service and 3 before that as the Insurance Ombudsman. He is going to do adjudication in the Health Professions which is no doubt important but is not enough... 
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MAC Buds in May – why health is different from a PlayStation®

There has been only a couple of articles on our blog since the last newsletter – one was a review of Christine Hogg’s up to the minute history of public involvement in the NHS. I have bought my copy and would urge you to do the same if you are trying to make sense of the structures and techniques... 
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November’s Newsletter: No downturn here – M-A-C blogging team’s creative outputs breaks all records

10 posts since 30th September represents an all-time record as M-A-C engages with the issues and causes dear to our collective and individual hearts. Our first ever post back in 2003 was about our central interest – user involvement. A theme echoed in this month’s output with Andrew’s... 
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