WIREDGOV

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has embarked on the second stage of its modernisation drive to radically change the service it provides to people with complaints about the NHS in England and UK government departments and their agencies, such as the Child Maintenance Service and the DVLA.

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.

The next phase of the modernisation programme will focus on what people can expect from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's investigations and service. It recognises that sometimes its service has not been as good as it would have liked, and will be open and honest about this, ensuring lessons are learnt.

The Ombudsman Service will be developing a charter, which will be a set of promises to service users, so the public and service providers know what they can expect from the service.

The charter will be based on feedback, research and engagement with service users, past and present, consumer and advocacy groups and organisations we investigate. It will give people a clear understanding of the time it will take to complete their investigation, how the investigation will be carried out and be more open and transparent throughout the investigation process.

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Julie Mellor said:

'We want to give more people an independent, impartial and formal decision on the complaint they bring to us and to be more user-focused in the way we do it.

'We need to modernise and change the way we do things to achieve this. We have already made some important changes – we have completed six times as many investigations as the year before and halved the time taken to complete an investigation. But we want to do more to listen and respond to what people have told us they want from an Ombudsman Service.

'That's why we are developing a Service Charter looking at how we investigate, how long we take to investigate complaints and the customer service we provide. We want to hear from as many people as possible to help us develop a modern Ombudsman Service.'

As part of the modernisation programme, the Ombudsman Service pledged last month to positively use its existing discretion to consider whether an effective investigation is possible on complaints about serious health cases, for example allegations of avoidable death, that happened more than 12 months ago. Where it judges it is possible, it will now generally investigate.

The Service Charter is due to be in finalised by next April and there will be plenty of opportunities, including a public consultation, for service users and bodies in the Ombudsman Service's jurisdiction to take part. Please emailServiceCharter@ombudsman.org.uk to take part.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman makes recommendations for organisations to put things right when mistakes are made. Recommendations can include an apology from the organisation to the complainant, a financial remedy and actions to put things right, such as correcting a medical record, reinstating patients on GP lists and reviewing the treatment and care provided.

In 2013-14, the ombudsman asked for the following remedies to be made:

• 752 apologies
• 628 compensation payments: £595,861 from health organisations, £152,053 from government organisations
• 631 recommendations for management action, which can include action plans and changes to policy and procedures
• 197 other actions to put things right, which can include reinstating patients on GP lists and reviewing care and treatment provided

Notes to editors

In August, we began publishing anonymised case summaries of the complaints we investigated. For the first time people can search by the name of the organisation we investigated, for example by hospital, government department or agency; by city or county; by complaint handling issue such as unnecessary delay; or by what the complaint was about, such as sepsis. We are due to publish our next batch of case summaries on the 29^th October 2014, which will give details of more than 150 cases we completed investigating between April and June 2014.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman was set up by Parliament. It is the final step for people to complain to when they have been treated unfairly or received a poor service from the NHS in England or a UK government department or agency. Its role is to investigate complaints fairly, without taking sides and make recommendations to put things right, to prevent the same problem from happening again.

Its powers are set out in law and the service is free for everyone.

In 2013-14 it investigated 2,199 cases compared to 384 the previous year. This increase is because we are modernising our service to give more people a final adjudication on their complaint.

The majority (78%) of its investigations in 2013-14 were about the NHS in England.

Contact: Marina Soteriou

Phone: 0300 061 4996