Upheld, recommendations

Summary
Mrs C complained that the board failed to inform her of a meeting which took place to discuss her and her children. The evidence showed that the meeting was arranged to discuss suspected child protection matters. It also involved people outside the children's core care team. The Scottish Government's guidance on child protection makes it clear that all service providers have a responsibility to act to make sure that a child whose safety or welfare may be at risk is protected from harm. If a child is considered to be at risk of harm, relevant information must always be shared which may prevent problems from escalating. However, the guidance also says that when involved in child protection work, authorities should ensure that, wherever possible, parents are given full information about the nature of the concerns, and the child and family are consulted on and given explanations for any actions/decisions taken. The board's own child protection guidelines are clear that if children are suspected to be at risk, these concerns should be raised without delay. When such concerns are formally raised, the parents should be informed. Only in situations where there are clear and present reasons that make informing the parents inadvisable or unsafe can it be justified not to do so. We found that the board should have told Mrs C about the meeting, and about the support services that exist to help families in these situations.

Summary
Mrs C complained about the service that she received when attending her local out-of-hours medical service. She felt that the information that she was given delayed her treatment. She had been unwell for a number of days and called NHS 24 for an appointment at the out-of-hours centre. Before the appointment was arranged, she took a turn for the worse and made her way to the centre. She was met by an unidentified individual (understood to be the doctor's driver). She was told that she could wait for the doctor but that this could take several hours. Alrternatively she could return home and call NHS 24. Mrs C returned home. When NHS 24 called with her appointment, she cancelled it as she was too unwell to return to the out-of-hours centre. Mrs C saw her GP the following morning and was immediately referred to hospital. We found that the service provided was poor as a result of the Board's policy for out-of-hours walk-in patients, which required a medical assessment to be made by non-medical staff. Information provided to patients in the absence of a doctor was also found to be poor.

Recommendations
We recommend that Highland NHS Board:
• review their policy with specific attention given to which members of staff should assess patients' medical records;
• apologise to Mrs C; and
• review the information provided to patients when the reception is unmanned.

Summary
Mr C said that the university did not follow their complaints policy when considering his complaint. He said they delayed and, because he was not allowed to proceed to the final stages of their complaints procedure, he was denied assistance from the ASK service (a student support service). Mr C made eight complaints to the university. Because of their overlapping nature and the voluminous correspondence associated with them, the university decided to deal with them together in terms of the Student Complaints Procedure. They gave Mr C their decision just over four months later, telling him that their involvement in the matter was at an end and that he should complain to the Ombudsman if he was unhappy with their decision. Our investigation determined that, although the university had at all times been courteous and objective in the face of a huge flow of correspondence from Mr C, they failed to follow their stated complaints procedure by allowing him to appeal their decision to them. Similarly, we agreed that there had been delay in dealing with the matter and that, as a consequence of the university's refusal to proceed to an appeal, the ASK service had withdrawn their involvement. Our recommendations were aimed at ensuring that the university follow their own policies correctly in future.

Recommendations
We recommend that University of Strathclyde:
• remind staff of the importance of following their stated complaints procedure;
• apologise to the complainant for failing to inform him of his right to appeal at stage 3 of their complaints procedure;
• in the event that Mr C wishes to appeal any decision made on his stage 2 complaints to the university, we recommend that his appeals are considered in terms of stage 3 of their stated complaints procedures; and
• apologise to Mr C for their delay in dealing with his complaint made in July 2010.

Summary
Mr C complained that the SPS unreasonably refused his request to access and review the Integrated Case Management Guidance Manual. This manual is aimed at staff, to help them help identify needs and programmes that may assist prisoners throughout their sentence, and to guide the management of prisoners’ case conferences. Mr C received notice that a case conference was due. The notice mentioned the manual, and he asked to see it. He was told that he could not, as it was for staff use only.

When we investigated, the SPS confirmed that they designed the manual to provide staff with support and guidance. They were therefore not obliged to give Mr C direct access to it. We also, however, identified that a copy is held in the prison library and prisoners are allowed to see it. No one told Mr C this. It appears that when he complained he in fact received mixed messages from staff at different stages of the complaint process about whether he could have access to the manual. Had staff simply told him it was available in the library, his complaints to the SPS and to us could have been avoided. We therefore upheld his complaint.

Recommendations
We recommended that the prison:
• apologise to Mr C for failing to explain how he could access the manual; and
• take steps to remind staff what documents are available for prisoners to access
from the prisoner library.

Summary
Mr C is the father of a boy who was temporarily excluded from secondary school. He complained that the council did not reasonably investigate his complaints. In the course of our investigation, we looked at the council’s Management Circular No. 8: Procedures Governing the Exclusion of Children and Young People from School (the circular) which lays out the procedures that must be followed when pupils are excluded.

The council gave us information about how the school handled the exclusion. This showed that the school did not comply with some sections of the circular. They did not arrange a meeting within seven days of the date of exclusion, and there was no evidence of a homework programme being sent to the excluded pupil or tutorials being offered on his return to school. They did not use relevant forms and the information that the school recorded did not reasonably cover the information to be recorded on these forms. We saw no evidence that the school investigated the complaints. We therefore considered the response sent to Mr C to be unreasonable and noted that the council previously accepted that it was not in line with their guidance.

Recommendations
We recommended that:
• the council apologise to Mr C that they did not reasonably investigate or respond to the complaints lodged;
• the school revise their procedures to ensure that the terms of the circular are
properly fulfilled, and the council audit the school’s revised procedures; and
• the council ensure that senior staff from the school participate in the first wave of
the refresher sessions on handling formal complaints that they are planning.

Summary
Mrs C complained that her medical practice removed her and her baby from the
practice list without prior discussion, warning or reasonable explanation. In the course of the investigation, we found that the practice removed Mrs C because they believed that she had missed an appointment. This was in line with the practice’s protocol for new patients missing appointments. We found, however, that their protocol did not adhere to the General Medical Council Regulations on this issue (Section 20 of Schedule 5, Part 2, of The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2004).

Recommendations
We recommended that the practice:
• apologise for removing Mrs C and her baby from the practice list without any prior warning, discussion or reasonable explanation;
• provide us with a copy of the revised protocol for removing both new and existing
patients from the practice list in situations where appointments are not kept and
adequate cancellation notice is not given; and
• review their systems for documenting when appointments have been made, in
particular when they are made at the patient's request, to ensure they are robust
and accurate.