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Digest of complaints referred to the Ombudsman by public representatives.

Date released: 22.10.2008

The Ombudsman Emily O´Reilly, today (Wed 22 October, 2008) published a Digest of twelve complaints referred to her for examination by public representatives. The publication coincides with an information briefing hosted by her Office in Leinster House for members of the Houses of the Oireachtas and their staff.

Thanking an Ceann Comhairle Mr John O'Donoghue T.D., for agreeing to launch the Digest Report, the Ombudsman said, "Both of these initiatives stem from a survey of Oireachtas members which we undertook to find out what members' views were on my Office, how we do our business and hopefully to build on the good co-operation between the members and my Office. The Digest summarises the beneficial and meaningful outcomes achieved in the case of twelve particular complaints referred to me for examination by public representatives. The cases are a representative sample and are about everyday bread and butter issues for the people involved".

The complaints and their outcomes are detailed fully in the Digest and include;

• Decision of HSE to refuse a medical card to a teenage heart patient reversed.
• Patient awaiting surgery gets taxi bills for hospital visits paid for.
• €14,200 pension/benefit arrears paid. Department reverses decision not to grant OAP.
• €21,700 reduction in sale price of house under Tenant Purchase Scheme.
• Decision not to grant nursing home subvention (€203 weekly) reversed.
• €6,990 early retirement farming pension repayment written off.
• Disabled person gets decision refusing central heating grant reversed.
• Single farm payment upped by €4,100 yearly.

The briefing and digest launch are part of an initiative by the Ombudsman to extend the outreach programme of her Office to target and help the most exposed and unprotected people in society. In order to improve communication channels between Oireachtas members and her Office, the Ombudsman will be setting up, dedicated contact points in her Office for Oireachtas members and their support staff, as well as a dedicated complaints form, designed for use by TDs and Senators. This will make it easier for members to make complaints to the Ombudsman and for them to refer to her for help, people who have been badly treated by public bodies. It will also assist those members who have not availed of the Office's services in the past.

"As Ombudsman, I have always been very concerned that the greatest possible number of people know about my Office and the free, impartial and independent service it can provide for them. Being at the heart of their communities, public representatives can be of great service in this regard. To assist with this, my Office has updated our information literature explaining about our service in general, and produced a range of new information leaflets. These new leaflets go into finer detail, advising and informing the public about making complaints in particular niche areas such as hospitals, social welfare and housing".

"In investigating a complaint, it may not be well known that the powers conferred on me by the Oireachtas, under the Ombudsman Act, 1980, are very significant. For example, I can demand from public bodies under my remit, any information, document or file to scrutinise and assess and require any official to give my Office information. This helps me greatly in bringing complaints to a successful conclusion. Unlike the courts, my Office takes a user-friendly and non-adversarial approach in dealing with complaints", added the Ombudsman.

While there is a significant level of referral by Oireachtas members of both people and complaints to the Ombudsman, research undertaken on behalf of the Office indicated that over a fifth of Dáil respondents to the Oireachtas survey and over a quarter of the Seanad respondents, stated that they did not have any interaction with the Office. The level of referrals was higher for Dáil respondents. The results also showed that the higher the level of engagement with the Office, the greater the level of satisfaction with the service.

Clarifying her role on complaints about public hospitals and various HSE service providers, Ms O'Reilly commented, "There appears to be some confusion about this, as was evident from a recent discussion on the RTE´s Questions and Answers show, when people were justifiably concerned about hospital patients and their treatment. While we cannot deal with complaints involving clinical judgement, we can deal with complaints on the delivery of care to patients, involving all public hospitals and other service providers. In fact, a large number of complaints we receive actually relate to the delivery of care rather than clinical judgement. We have recommended remedies for those who have been adversely affected, including changes to hospital protocols and procedures.

People need to know that I do deal with administrative errors in the health area, but when you realise that those administrative errors may and do encompass such things as missing patient files, incorrect quantities of prescribed medicines, delays in passing on critical test results to consultants, as well as failures of communication between medical staff, everyone can see how critical to patient safety the rather drily described "administrative errors" actually are. I hope that the Digest Report, the Oireachtas members' briefing and the deepening engagement of public representatives with the work of my office, will alert the wider public to the potential of my Office to deal with even more hospital, and broader health, complaints in my effective role as health ombudsman".

The Ombudsman also reiterated her public statement of welcome on the occasion of the publication of the Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill, 2008 last July by the Minister for Finance, Mr Brian Lenihan T.D., which proposed the extension of her remit to an extensive number of other public bodies as well as other progressive provisions. She looks forward to the scrutiny of the proposed legislation by the Houses of the Oireachtas in the coming months.

Concluding, the Ombudsman said, "It is not simply the positive outcomes summarised in the Digest Report that matter, delivered for those grappling with bureaucracy, but also the raising of standards of public service and the systemic benefits for other people finding themselves in similar difficult and worrying circumstances. For these reasons I intend to publish more Complaint Digests at regular intervals to highlight this and also to encourage more referrals from public representatives and from those working in communities whether on a voluntary or paid basis".

The full text of the Digest is available from: www.ombudsman.ie

For media inquiries contact:

Dave Glynn - Head of Communications Tel: 01 639 5714 - 087 236 1884 email: david_glynn@ombudsman.gov.ie

The purpose of the Office of the Ombudsman is to help raise public service standards. Individuals, businesses or organisations who feel they have been unfairly treated can make complaints to the Ombudsman. Our service is free. We aim to ensure that people are treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity in their dealings with the public service. We will make every effort to deal with your complaint properly, fairly and impartially.

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