Hansard

Yes, please. If my voice goes, it is not stress, but a head cold.I thank the committee for inviting the Scottish Association of Health Councils to give evidence today. We had an opportunity to submit evidence—our response to the consultation documents of 12 months ago. The health council movement in Scotland is broadly supportive of the bill. We support the policy objective of having a one-stop shop for public sector ombudsmen, which makes sense with the joint future proposals that are being advanced.The proposal that the ombudsman should take over the Mental Welfare Commission's function of investigating and handling complaints relating to mental health is relevant to the health councils and particularly to vulnerable patients who suffer from mental health problems. When responding to the earlier consultation, the Scottish Association of Health Councils stated that it felt that that was necessary, as there was a lack of clarity between the role of the Mental Welfare Commission and that of the ombudsman in handling complaints. That was evidenced by the fact that a concordat was drawn up between the two bodies to clarify the situation. It is still not clear to many complainants who does what and when.We welcome the proposal that the Scottish public sector ombudsman will deal with complaints relating to mental health issues. However, we hope that the focus given by the Mental Welfare Commission in its annual report on mental health problems is not lost when the issue is taken on by the public sector ombudsman. The proposal is consistent with what was outlined in the Millan report. It is important that the Mental Welfare Commission as the regulator and promoter of the principles of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984 should not be seen as an independent investigative body dealing with complaints. Those functions should be kept separate.In certain quarters, there is a perception that the Mental Welfare Commission is rather bureaucratic and too close to psychiatry. In the recent Docherty case, it was claimed that the Mental Welfare Commission was not only too close to the psychiatric profession but very secretive in its operation. The ombudsman is not subject to such criticism, although we have concerns about some aspects of the ombudsman's operation. I had an opportunity to discuss that with Mr Buckley earlier and I do not think that he disagrees with our points. Although we think that in the past the NHS ombudsman has been rigorous and that his reports have been detailed and worth while, the number of complaints that he has dealt with is relatively low. Those investigations have taken considerable time and have been expensive. There may well be a resource issue if the public sector ombudsman is to deal with more complaints and the public might expect complaints to be dealt with more timeously.There is already a problem in the NHS in dealing with complaints within the time limits. Last year, the NHS ombudsman referred 224 cases, accepted 34 and reported on 24. The ombudsman agrees that he has to review the practices in an effort to reduce the time that is taken to deal with complaints. The annual report states that the average time taken to deal with a complaint has dropped from 45 weeks to 42 weeks. We think that the public expect reports to be concluded more quickly than that. Often, by the time complaints reach the ombudsman, a complainant has already waited a considerable time.We are concerned that the time limit for submitting a complaint is still one year. We accept that there should be a time limit, but there is an issue about flexibility, given the time taken to deal with complaints within the health service. We must state that very strongly. Many people who have complaints have already been through the NHS procedure, which might take a year—we have had cases that took more than a year before they got to the ombudsman. Many of the complainants have been bereaved or are ill themselves. In those circumstances, a very flexible approach to the time scale of complaints should be taken.We welcome several aspects of the bill. We understand that paragraph 6 of part 1 of schedule 2 indicates that complaints in respect of services provided by private hospitals that deal with NHS patients who have been referred to them, or in respect of companies providing services under the private finance initiative, will be liable to investigation. That is essential. We also welcome the fact that the bill closes the current loophole by allowing the new ombudsman to investigate complaints about family health service practitioners or independent providers who have retired or otherwise ceased to provide a service. We welcome the removal of the MSP filter, allowing the public to address complaints directly to the ombudsman. We welcome what should be greater scrutiny of the work of the ombudsman by the relevant committee of the Scottish Parliament. The change presents a great opportunity to relaunch the service provided by the ombudsman and publicise that important work. We hope that the promotional and communications material will advertise other sources of information and support available to the public, such as local health councils and citizens advice bureaux.The public sector ombudsman should institute clear appeals and complaints arrangements for his office. We know that there is a degree of dissatisfaction on the part of many people whose cases have not been accepted and reported on. Those people feel that the reply that they received is far from satisfactory. Dorothy-Grace Elder made that point.We agree that the bill should aim to maintain the ombudsman's independence from the bodies that he or she investigates. We might be wrong about this, but we believe that there is a problem with the wording of subsections (1) and (2) of section 2, on "Power of investigation". Section 2(2) states:"The Ombudsman may investigate any matter, whenever arising, if—(a) paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) are satisfied, and(b) the person liable to investigation has requested the Ombudsman to investigate the matter."That could be interpreted to mean that the body being complained about had a veto on investigations by the ombudsman. Clearly, that is not the intention of the bill, but to our untutored eyes it looks as if "and" at the end of line 3 on page 2 of the bill should read "or", which would solve the problem. However, we are not used to drafting parliamentary bills and perhaps the word "and" has to be used. The guidance makes clear the intention of the bill, but we would not want people to feel that the body being investigated had a veto on investigations.