Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
As 2024 draws to a close, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on a year of significant milestones here at the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. It’s also a time to look forward to some of what lies ahead in the year to come.
Farewell to Rob Behrens
Rob Behrens concluded his seven-year tenure as Ombudsman in March this year. He joined Faye Glover for a special farewell episode of Radio Ombudsman. In this reflective conversation, Rob shared stories from his early life and career, the challenges and successes of his time as Ombudsman, and his future plans.
A new podcast to help make complaints count
This year, we launched our new podcast Making Complaints Count, where we’ll explore the power of complaints and how organisations can use them to learn and improve.
Each episode we'll be joined by experts working in the health and public sector, complaints champions and those who have experienced the complaints journey first-hand.
You can listen to our new podcast episodes now, including our first episode where I talk about my priorities as Ombudsman.
The power of complaints: creating lasting change and inspiring a better relationship between people and public services
Our casework can sometimes illuminate systemic failings. To help organisations better understand the impacts these failings can have, we have published a number of reports this year so they can learn from mistakes and improve their services.
Spotlight on the Windrush Compensation Scheme
In September, we published our latest report shining a spotlight on some of the common reasons people have wrongly been denied compensation by the Windrush Compensation Scheme. The report highlights recurring themes in complaints, such as:
- telling people they weren't eligible for compensation when they were
- not always looking at all the evidence provided
- applying the rules even when they led to unfair outcomes.
Almost half a million pounds in compensation has been secured following our investigations. We hope the report will encourage other people to complain if they have had a bad experience when applying for compensation through the Scheme.
If you think the Windrush Compensation Scheme has made the wrong decision on your claim, you may be able to make a complaint. We’ve published some tips that will help guide you through what to do.
Women’s State Pension age investigation
Earlier this year we published stages two and three of our investigation into DWP’s communication of changes to women’s State Pension age.
We found that thousands of women may have been affected by DWP’s failure to adequately inform them that the State Pension age had changed. The report was laid before Parliament, with a request that it looks at our findings and intervenes to agree a remedy for the women affected. We’ve been engaging with MPs and select committees since the publication of the report.
Empowering patient’s voices
This year also saw the publication of two other crucial reports. Firstly, our report on end of life care report called for urgent improvements to the process and communication surrounding “do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation” (DNACPR).
And our report on mental health discharge made recommendations on how good discharge should be carried and how this care can be made safer and more patient-centred.
We’re continuing to engage with relevant organisations to make sure our recommendations are followed up on.
Improving complaint handling
The Complaint Standards help NHS and UK Central Government organisations to approach complaint handling in a clear and consistent way. This year, we published revised Good complaint handling guides to make them easier to use and navigate.
We also published additional guides on managing challenging situations for the NHS and UK Central Government and the role of parent departments in overseeing complaint handling.
We've received a really positive response from the organisations that have adopted the Complaint Standards. Their feedback has been invaluable in creating guides that will help make complaint-handling easier.
We also ran workshops to help advocacy and charity organisations become Complaint Champions so they can better understand the work we do and how we can support users of their services. We hope these workshops will help arm these organisations with the skills and knowledge to help people who use their service navigate the complaint landscape.
Looking ahead
The coming year will be year of new beginnings as we look forward to welcoming the new permanent Ombudsman once the appointment process has concluded.
After listening to your feedback, we’ll also be looking at a new approach to the way we handle complaints. We believe that complaints have the power to create lasting, positive change. To do this, we want to focus the most resources on the most serious cases and the cases where we can have the most impact. This will allow us to help more people and make the biggest difference to public services.
I was deeply honoured to step into the role of Ombudsman after Rob’s departure. I’d like to thank all of my colleagues for their support across 2024. I look forward to continuing to deliver a service that helps those who have been let down by public services access the justice they deserve in 2025 and beyond.
