Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1982/83 : selected investigations completed April- September 1982.

  • Great Britain. Health Service Commissioner.
Date:
1983
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health Service Commissioner : first report for session 1982/83 : selected investigations completed April- September 1982. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    misled the complainant’s mother which had caused her to opt for private treatment. Because a serious complaint had been made against him, he was unwilling to hazard a guess at the probable waiting time. He had therefore, had to assess his waiting list so that his forecast would be as accurate as possible. The consultant said that he could not understand why the admin- istration or the admissions clerk could not have given the complainant an answer as they had access to the same information as he had about the number of patients on his waiting list. 21. The consultant said that the UA had asked him to telephone the complainant although he could not recall why he was asked to do so. (The UA recalled that he had been surprised to learn that the consultant had spoken to the complainant; he could not remember that he had asked for the call to be made). When he spoke to the complainant on 19 August neither he nor the complainant had mentioned either NHS waiting time or the question of private treatment. He had however been assured that the mother’s early admission should proceed and that the complainant did not wish to press a formal complaint. It was, the consultant said, the AUA, for reasons which were not clear to him, who had wanted to convert this enquiry into a formal complaint and he could not understand why a request for information about NHS waiting times, which apparently was all the com- plainant wanted to know, was not referred to the admissions clerk or himself in the first instance. 22. I have seen a copy of the consultant’s reply to the UA which he made on 21 August (paragraph 18). In it he said: ‘It is not, and was not, either my wish nor as it turns out, Mr ’s, that his query should be turned into a complaint. This was done by [the AUA], and needs explanation. What I asked you was that you put your questions in writing, as has always been your custom [for formal complaints]. . . . I must point out that J am con- cerned with the manner in which this Hospital’s administration seems to think that the only way in which an enquiry can be handled is by converting it into a complaint. As I said to you on Friday, 15th August . . . I find it very curious that there has been a sudden rise in the incidence of complaints emanating from your office. I do not know whether this is merely a matter of coincidence .. . or a ‘conspiracy ’, and if the latter whether it is directed against the medical corpus of this Hospital or only against me, and whether in either case it is motivated by a religious, racial, political or some other animus. ...’ Findings 23. Although there is conflict between the evidence of the complainant and that of the AUA about their conversations, it is not disputed that the complainant asked the UA about NHS waiting time and that he was not given the information until after his mother’s operation had taken place. 24. I can understand the administrators’ feeling at the outset that there was an implication that the complainant’s mother had been wrongly per- suaded to seek private treatment (although I myself am not satisfied that this was so); but, once the complainant had specifically asked for informa-