2. Written evidence from the Community
Health Councils and the Board of Community Health Councils in
Wales
We welcome the opportunity to make this submission
and we have some general points to make as well as one or two
specific points.
THE GENERAL
POINTS ARE
AS FOLLOWS
1. Reference is made throughout the Bill
to "a listed authority" and we recognise that the majority
of complaints which are referred to the Ombudsman will relate
to one Authority. However, in our experience with handling complaints
on behalf of patients, it is often the case that the complaint
overlaps health services and social services and that it is possible
that both are at fault at the interface. We would commend the
Committee to consider a reference to the eventuality somewhere
in the bill.
2. Timing is an issue.
When a complaint is made it is often because
attempts to procure a service or to persuade the authority to
fill a gap in service have failed. If the complaint relates to
services for a child or an elderly person, it is likely that delays
in the processing of a complaint will be crucial, because continuing
failure to deliver the service may have a lasting impact on the
person who is the subject of the complaint. We would ask the Committee
to consider making it more explicit in the Bill that where time
is of the essence, the Ombudsman will accept the complaint after,
say, a month of the listed authority being made aware of it. Examples
of our concerns are young children needing remedial therapies
to enable them to enter education and elderly persons whose future
quality of life or life expectancy may be limited by a failure
to provide such a service.
3. We see no reference to the Public Service
Ombudsman in Wales having to comply with the Welsh Language Act,
but no doubt that will be covered elsewhere.
4. We are concerned at the present time
about cross-border issues between England and Wales in particular,
whereby patients living in Wales may be registered with GP practices
in England and may receive hospital care in England. We would
like to be assured that there will be clarity as to how these
issues will be dealt with.
5. We are concerned that decisions made
by the Ombudsman which have far-reaching effects, such as for
instance the decisions made in England about Continuing NHS Care
being fully funded by the NHS, will be implemented in a consistent
way across Wales and that the Assembly will take responsibility
for ensuring that this happens.
ON THE
SPECIFIC POINTS
(i) Section 11 refers to decisions taken
without maladministration and 11.1 in particular refers to the
"exercise of a discretion". We are concerned that this
may be used as a means to avoid provision of services which are
not available for financial or manpower reasons either temporarily
or permanently but would normally be construed as services to
be provided by the listed authority. We would ask the Committee
if this could be clarified or defined in such a way as to prevent
a listed authority from avoiding its obligations. Reference is
made particularly to remedial therapies for pre-school children
in this respect.
(ii) We welcome the inclusion in Schedule
3 of Community Health Councils, but given that it has also been
created in the Health (Wales) Act 2003, we would suggest that
the Board of Community Health Councils in Wales should also be
listed in Schedule 3 and subject to the powers of the Ombudsman.
(iii) There is reference in Schedule 3 to
a variety of listed health authorities but given previous comments
about cross-border issues, should not Primary Care Trusts also
be included?
13 January 2005
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