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To: Secretary of State for Health Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt
A truly Independent NHS Complaints system
Dear Secretary of State,
In 2011 as part of their Complaints and Litigation Inquiry, the Health Select Committee found the "NHS Complaints system was not working" and recommended (in order to be an effective appeals process for NHS Complaints) the role of the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) needed a "complete overhaul".PHSO has NOT accepted this recommendation and members of the public have no means of resolving complaints.
Why is this important?
I believe the only way forward to address this justly is to stop NHS investigating itself and make Trusts accountable- financially! Therefore my suggestion is a fully Independent complaints system funded by a Complaints pool. The PHSO process currently costs over £30m per annum to investigate less than 2% of complaints brought to it..that 98% left unresolved!
Funding for Independent Complaint Resolution could come by scrapping the ineffective PHSO process, we would save £m's and each Trust paying into a Complaints Pool (with Trusts failing at local resolution (first stage of complaints process) to pay in substantially more.) I feel there will be a willingness to keep costs low, implementation & learning lessons may be the real winners.
