Apology and explanation: Only provided after the persistent efforts

HYWEL DDA UHB has been the subject of a stinging rebuke by the Public Services Ombudsman (PSO) in relation to abject failures in its complaints handing system.

In June 2014, a concerned parent had complained to the Board concerning her son’s ophthalmic care.

The Board did not respond to the complaint.

The frustrated mum complained to the Ombudsman in January this year, asking him to investigate the Health Board’s handling of her complaint and get a response.

HEALTH BOARD DID NOT COMPLY

The Ombudsman resolved the complaint as the Board agreed to undertake a number of actions, which included an apology, financial redress, and confirmation of when a written response would be sent to the parent.

These actions were to be completed by March 15.

Two months later and almost two years since the mum’s complaint was received, the Health Board had not complied with the promises it made to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman makes it clear in his report that he is not impressed with the Board’s lackadaisical approach.

STRONG WORDS FOR BOARD

The report issued found: ‘The apology and explanation was only provided after the persistent efforts of my officer in chasing up the letter (after the March 15 deadline).

The Ombudsman goes on to state that his officer was told conflicting information by Health Board staff when pursuing the matter and observed: ‘When it finally arrived, on March 29, two weeks beyond the agreed date, the letter bore the date of March 15. At best this was another example of tardy delay between composing a letter and actually sending it, for no obvious good reason. At worst, it was an attempt to imply, and influence me to conclude, that the Health Board had fully complied within the agreed deadline’.

Moreover, the Board had failed to provide any response to the parent’s complaint and, at the time the Ombudsman issued their report this week, had still failed to respond to her complaint.

OMBUDSMAN’S ‘SERIOUS CONCERNS’

The Ombudsman concluded: ‘The events giving rise to me issuing this report cause me serious concerns about the Health Board’s management of its complaints handling function and also, in light of the above evidence, its candour and governance. It explicitly agreed to undertake actions, as a result of which I did not conduct an investigation into its complaints handling, as I might have and could have done. It then misinformed my CO about the sending of the letter and has further misinformed both the complainant and me about when it would issue the awaited complaint response.

‘Despite my sending the Chief Executive a draft copy of this report, it is disappointing to note that I received no formal acknowledgement of it nor have I received (at the time of my arranging the final text of this report) any formal indication from him that he will implement [the further recommendations made]’.

BOARD BOSS’ APOLOGY

Hywel Dda UHB Chief Executive Steve Moore issued a statement responding to the Ombudsman’s criticisms.

‘On behalf of the health board, I would like to apologise unreservedly for the way in which we handled a complaint about the care received by one of our patients, following a report by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

‘It is indefensible and should never have happened. I would like to confirm that all actions required by the Ombudsman have been under-taken, although I accept he did not receive my confirmation of this prior to writing his report, and for that I also apologise.

‘We acknowledged last year that our ability to respond in a timely way to all concerns was not fit for purpose, as we had acquired a significant backlog. This is not an excuse but an explanation of where we were.

Since then, we have invested the time and money to address this and made significant improvements to our ability to manage concerns appropriately and in a timely way. We are also strengthening the integration of formal correspondence in the health board to prevent something like this from happening again.

‘We want to ask our population to trust in us that we have made significant improvements and not to be discouraged from logging a concern as it is important to us to redress people who have not received the care they should expect and so we can learn and share valuable lessons to inform continual improvement to our services’.