Health Service Commissioner for England (Complaint Handling) Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Friday 13th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on bringing the Bill to the House. I welcome it and the changes, which she outlined, that the ombudsman has already been making internally. I shall comment on the general complaints environment within which this falls.

As we know, public service delivery has become much more complex since the office of the ombudsman was established nearly 50 years ago. Many services are now delivered through a combination of public, private and third-sector providers, particularly in health and social care, where the boundaries between treatment and care and between providers are becoming blurred. Indeed, consumers often do not know whether they are patients or service users, who is providing the care, who has responsibility for the handover between health and social care when things go wrong or even whether their local authority retains responsibility for a care service provided by an independent organisation, albeit funded by the authority. Incidentally, the answer to the latter question is yes, the local authority retains responsibility.

Are we surprised when users or their families are confused about whom to complain to in the first instance or to which ombudsman to appeal should matters not be resolved? Social care is dealt with by the Local Government Ombudsman whereas health is dealt with by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. The Public Administration Select Committee in the other place has helpfully explored these challenges. In April last year, it published a report whose very title tells a tale: Time for a People’s Ombudsman Service. It recommended the creation of a new, unified public ombudsman, which the current Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Local Government Ombudsman welcomed. Those two ombudsmen—actually, women in both cases, which is perhaps why they co-operate so well—share the Select Committee’s ambitious vision for reforming the landscape.

A unified ombudsman would provide a streamlined and seamless service for users, covering all public services delivered both locally and nationally in England, and all the UK non-devolved services. That is an exciting possibility which could not only empower consumers, but also—by the gathering of all complaint data—enable trends and persistent faults and shortcomings to be identified, so that preventive rather than just restitutive action can often be taken.

The Government have commissioned Robert Gordon to carry out a review of the ombudsman landscape in the light of this report, and I look forward to reading his recommendations. Can the Minister tell the House when he anticipates receiving that report, and whether the Government favour the Select Committee’s approach?

There is a real impetus for change, which could benefit consumers as well as the health service and social care. I hope I might be in a position to urge a new Labour Government to consider legislation to create a modern, single public ombudsman service. Failing that, however, I will be back, urging the Minister to do so, for the sake of citizens but also to achieve better value for money.