Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman correspondence to the Chief Executive of Sciensus on 16 October 2023 asking him to review the Sciensus complaints process.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) reports to Parliament directly and is held to account through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

As the PHSO's jurisdiction includes independent healthcare providers that deliver services on behalf of the National Health Service in England, it is right that the Ombudsman wrote to the Chief Executive of Sciensus, a company providing home care medicines service to NHS patients, about its complaints process. We understand that Sciensus has agreed to continue to improve their complaints handling process in line with the principles set out in the NHS Complaint Standards.

The NHS Complaint Standards were co-created by the PHSO and organisations across the NHS and Government. The Standards, along with the model complaint handling procedure and guidance, set out how organisations providing NHS services should approach complaint handling. They apply to NHS organisations in England and independent healthcare providers who deliver NHS-funded care.