Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-259)
17 MARCH 2005
MS TRISH
LONGDON AND
MR COLIN
HOUGHTON
Q240 Dr Naysmith: That is what I am really
asking about.
Ms Longdon: We have the issue
of what we would call "botheration payments"—payments
which are about inconvenience or distress and worry—and
we will ask for such payments where we consider for any complaint,
on our parliamentary work and our health work, that people have
been put through that. There is nothing to prevent the Department
of Health making such payments and for local health bodies to
make such payments, and, indeed, they do in a number of areas.
We have examples where we have suggested that should happen and
it has happened. Obviously, in cases where there are such a large
number of complainants, as there are here, it becomes a broader
issue. But those payments have been made, we have examples of
those, and we think they are very appropriate. So they have taken
place in particular examples.
Q241 Dr Naysmith: In this area that we
are talking about this morning.
Ms Longdon: We know of one in
this area. But in other areas too we know of them.
Q242 Mr Burns: You will be aware over
the last few years how many people have been grateful to the work
of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, particularly with their original
report and the follow-up report. Throughout the history of the
Parliamentary Ombudsman, have there been many incidents where
the Ombudsman has produced a report and found something going
wrong and made recommendations, and you have had to then produce
a follow-up report?
Ms Longdon: I am afraid I cannot
comment on the history. I do not know of that.
Q243 Mr Burns: How long have you worked
there?
Ms Longdon: Two years.
Mr Houghton: Seven years, including
parliamentary. You mentioned parliamentary, do you mean parliamentary
and health together or either?
Q244 Mr Burns: Would you agree with me
that it is, from your suspicion, very unusual for the Parliamentary
Ombudsman to produce a follow-up report?
Ms Longdon: Yes.
Q245 Mr Burns: Would you also agree with
me that when you produced your follow-up report it was fairly
damning and rather surprising at the response in reality to the
original report, in that you found that over half of the cases
that have been reviewed were incorrect in some way; that there
was considerable concern at the delays in sorting out this problem
and providing justice for those who had suffered an injustice;
and that it seemed that either this was happening because people
just had no clue of what they were doing or there was a suspicion
that, the longer it took, because of the length of time and human
nature, there would be possibly less complaints or others that
would be abandoned because the people were no longer alive, frankly,
to contribute to the process. Which one do you think it is, or
a combination of both?
Ms Longdon: Certainly we are clear
that what went wrong was a huge disservice to a large number of
individuals and we have drawn attention to that. As you say, there
was a lot of delay, there was a failure to communicate, decisions
were wrongly made, and these are often frail, vulnerable people
who are in the situation. We are very clear that in making this
report to Parliament we were saying, "This is an issue that
needs to be looked at and we need to get this right." In
terms of the motivation of the people who were operating the service,
I am not sure we are in a position to comment on that motivation.
Our sense was that there were a lot of people, locally, working
incredibly hard to try to make this system work in dealing with
people—and perhaps getting it wrong, but not getting it
wrong because they were deliberately trying to get it wrong but
because they did not have the framework or the capacity and the
competence with which to do it. I do not think we have any information
to suggest that people were deliberately delaying things in order
to achieve some other outcome, but the effect was that those delays
were very significant and quite unacceptable.
Mr Houghton: If I could endorse
that. Between the period of the first report and the second report,
the February 2003 and the December 2004 reports, not only did
we have the complaints coming through, we had a great number of
practitioners from trusts and Strategic Health Authorities telephoning
us almost on a weekly basis to say, "We are struggling with
this criteria. We are trying to do our best. Can you come down
and train us? Can you tell us what to do? Or, better still, can
you come and sit on the panel and do this with us?" Of course,
we had to keep our distance from that. I think there were considerable
efforts to try to get this right, but they did not have the guidance
or leadership at that time to get it right.
Q246 Mr Burns: You may well be right
from your experience. The only experience I have is one constituency
case and, I must say, the performance of Essex Strategic Health
Authority in carrying out the review in no way near reflects your
experience. It was only through the PCT constantly badgering them
and writing to the Chairman that eventually one got it given to.
Do you also find it surprising, given the pressure—because
there is considerable pressure from a variety of sources to resolve
this and to right an injustice—that the minister responsible
for sorting this out at government level eight times gave commitments
that deadlines would be met in carrying out the backlog, including
three in Parliament, and eight times those deadlines were missed
and the commitments failed to be realised, to the point where
he actually came before this Committee last summer to say that
he was embarrassed by the situation? Do you find that surprising?
Ms Longdon: Certainly—and
we are on record as saying this—we were concerned that we
were misled as to the timeliness of reviews—and, indeed,
we then asked complainants to rely on those commitments that were
given. So we share your concern that commitments were given and
we therefore then said to a complainant, "You should go back
to your SHA and it will all be completed by . . ."—December/April/July—and
therefore we are very, very concerned that we had assurances on
which we relied which affected people. We certainly share that
concern.
Q247 Mr Burns: That is quite a strong
word "misled". For the Parliamentary Ombudsman's Office
to be misled is quite a strong condemnation. Who do you think
misled you?
Ms Longdon: We were assured—
Q248 Mr Burns: By?
Ms Longdon: By the Department
of Health.
Q249 Mr Burns: Are we talking about civil
servants, ministers, both?
Ms Longdon: I think I would want
to check exactly where those assurances came from before I answer
that. I would not want to mislead you on that.[3]
Q250 Mr Burns: You are suggesting, so
that I am completely clear in my mind, that it was either civil
servants in the Department of Health or ministers who misled you
about those commitments.
Ms Longdon: They gave us an assurance
that a timescale would be met on which we relied and which we
passed on to complainants. That subsequently was not the case.
Q251 Mr Burns: Presumably when those
deadlines were not met and you felt you had been misled, you were
aggrieved because you possibly felt embarrassed or you had let
down people by your—
Ms Longdon: We had let down complainants.
Q252 Mr Burns: What did you do? Did you
go back to the Department of Health to say, "Why have we
been misled?"
Ms Longdon: We certainly raised
it with the Department of Health, yes.
Q253 Mr Burns: Again, was it at ministerial
level or civil servant level? Or will you check that?
Ms Longdon: In each case, we will
check.
Q254 Mr Burns: What was the response?
Ms Longdon: The response, I think
as you know, was that a new deadline was set and we were given
access to that new deadline. We were told, "The deadline
is now . . ."—whatever it is—and then we relied
on that deadline in terms of the decisions that we then took.
Q255 Mr Burns: When that deadline was
not met, presumably you felt misled again.
Ms Longdon: We wrote a report,
which is a matter of record, which says that we were concerned
that the deadlines which we had been given and which the public
had been given had not been met.
Q256 Mr Burns: Do you find it extraordinary,
given the history of this saga, that you had to write that report?
Ms Longdon: I think our term would
be: we find it "regrettable" that we had to write this
report.
Q257 Mr Burns: Presumably that is diplomatic
for disappointed.
Ms Longdon: We are disappointed.
And it is regrettable because there are people who are suffering
during this process. There are individuals there for whom this
is terribly difficult.
Q258 Mr Burns: We have a problem here
in Parliament now, because up until 16 or 18 September last year
we could table parliamentary questions and by individual Strategic
Health Authorities we could get the information and track what
had happened and what was happening to those complaints. Just
before Christmas the Parliamentary Under Secretary blocked my
questions seeking for further information on that. The Secretary
of State very kindly agreed to supply it when he came before the
Health Select Committee in early January, but, when the question
was re-tabled, it did not actually get answered in the same format
as the published charts in September by the Parliamentary Under
Secretary, it just said that all but two Strategic Health Authorities
had completed their cases. So, basically, we are being blocked.
Are you being blocked, or do you know the answer to the question
in a way that we cannot get that answer?
Ms Longdon: Let me explain. We
have said publicly in our report that we believe monitoring of
the situation is important and there should be accountability
around this issue. How that is achieved is not what we have said.
We have said that should be achieved. We would agree that there
should be public information available around that. Do we have
that information? I am not sure we do.
Mr Houghton: No.
Ms Longdon: No.
Q259 Mr Burns: You do not have that information
either.
Ms Longdon: Nor have we asked
for that information specifically in the form that you are suggesting.
3 Note by witness: To clarify this point I quote
from our Follow-up Report to Parliament " We passed on to
the Department of Health concerns that we had heard from the NHS
bodies about difficulties in meeting both the December and March
deadlines. However, on both occasions the Department assured us
that their information showed the targets would be met and we
passed on these assurances to compliments, their representatives
and Member of Parliament. It became evident that the Department's
information was unreliable." Back
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