Complaints Too Difficile for NHS

The duo of Ann Clwyd MP and Professor Hart, a Francis Enquiry advisor, are tasked with coming up with recommendations on complaint handling in the NHS and the MAC Partners have sent them an email wishing them well. We added a link to our complaints report dating back to 2006 or so. I was reminded that... 
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Have you déjà vu?

Add to your vocabulary with the rhyming phrase  l’arrière-goût de déjà vu – the after-taste of d v. This was my rather acid mood when contemplating what to say about the latest report from the Ombudsman on complaint handling in the NHS. Anything New to Say? Could there be anything... 
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Who’s Got Your Data Now, Baby?

On Thursday 5 July, the Information Commissioner will launch his Annual Report 2011/12 in the form of a webcast – available from 14:00 on Thursday 5 July, when you will be able to watch the webcast from this link. So we thought that this would be a good moment to give an airing to the views of... 
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Private vs Public Sector Complaint Handling – Discard the Difference?

Some simple steps for either sector The debate, I think, has moved on and while there may still be differences, I would argue that the assumption is not useful anymore. If an organisation no matter what market sector it inhabits, takes the following simple steps (set out in the presentation by a major... 
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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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