Health Service Commissioner for England (Complaint Handling) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-02-27
Topic: Government Operations
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not intend to detain the House for long on this group of amendments. Suffice it to say that I think there is merit in new clause 3, to the extent that it concentrates the mind of the ombudsman. At the moment, there is simply a requirement to report and that is the end of it. If nothing seems to be done, it just carries on. My concern is that the whole object of the Bill is to stop the situation that occurred in the case that led to its introduction, in which an investigation carried on for the best part of two and half years. As I read the Bill, it seems to me that there would be nothing to stop that happening again. A case could be reported as being outstanding in the annual report at the end of year one, and at the end of year two it could still be outstanding and nobody other than the complainant and the ombudsman’s staff would know anything about it Amendment 3 places a requirement on the commissioner to notify the complainant before the end of the period and again that seems to me to be eminently reasonable. Given that the purpose of the Bill is to try to get things dealt with within 12 months, it seems sensible that if it is apparent to the commissioner that that will not be the case, they should inform the complainant before the end of the period. Otherwise, quite legitimately, the complainant will expect the result at the end of those 12 months if they have not heard anything. It is pretty sensible to expect that. Whether that would happen anyway remains to be seen Amendment 4 would require the commissioner to provide at the same time an estimate of the target date for completing the investigation, which seems very sensible. The commissioner would say, "Look, we’ve not quite managed to do it in 12 months, but we certainly will in another three." I see no reason why that should not be set out in the Bill I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) decided not to proceed with amendment 1, which relates to keeping complainants informed, as we dealt with that in the previous group. Everyone agreed that that was not a matter for legislation but should happen anyway as a matter of good practice I am rather less happy that my right hon. Friend has decided not to proceed with amendment 2, which would insert after subsection (4A)(b) the words "the reasons for each of those delays" The general report, as set out in subsection (4)(a), should include details of how long investigations concluded in the year to which the report relates took to be concluded and how many of them took more than 12 months. That means giving a stark figure, for example saying, "We had 30 investigations outstanding at the end of the year." It seems sensible also to require the reasons to be included. That would allow us to drill down and find out exactly what is causing the delays That leads me neatly to amendment 5, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). It would insert the following provision: "If the reason for the delay specified in Section 2HA is lack of financial resources it shall be the duty of the Commissioner to set out the action which is being taken to remedy that lack of financial resource." I am reluctant to support that. In my humble opinion, it is almost certain that any public official will reach the conclusion that what they really need to make their job easier and speed up the service they provide to the public is more resources. Unless we expect them to start having jumble sales and raffles—we have all tried using our own resources in that way to raise more funds—really the only thing they can do is come to Parliament and—