Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Anmeldelser 

There is actually no real purpose of value to this organisation. They had me on the phone for 15 minutes to then tell me that they won't be taking my case. Judging by everybody else's reviews this seems to be the case for nearly everybody. There is actually no purpose in them existing. It possibly costs more to keep them in existence than it does for the work that is carried out. Bunch of uneducated clowns. They know this could throw me over the edge and you've won. You win.

This service is truly heinous on all levels. There systems are not fit for purpose, they conveniently say the emailed complaints you send them can't be found months later. They never uphold a decision in favour of the person making the complaint. If you email anyone senior to chase progress as all you get is radio silence, you get emailed saying you can't keep emailing us. There communication is frightening, they wont spell your name right, they email about cases that were closed months ago and quite simply you will have more of a clue what is going on with your case than they ever will. you will log a case and get no case reference number for it, they will then say re-send it, they will then leave you waiting over a year and repeatedley say they are dealing with it. they offer no clear communication and if you email to ask how things are progressing, you simply get told not to contact them.

This organisation is stacked fully in favour of everyone but the complainant, which is ironic given it's publicly funded.

They will also totally fail to offer anything in way of support for reasonable adjustments for disabilities

its frightening

What is the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in the UK?

A cemetery for patients’ complaints.
A formal funeral for patients’ concerns.
The last nail in the coffin.

Another useless bureaucratic structure filled with paper pushers and functionaries, funded by public money.

Simply a presence intended to reassure the public through performative independent oversight.

Same experience as the other 500+ one-star reviews. Please note that an email sent to me states: “We’re changing our name. Later this year we will become the Public Service Ombudsman. This will make it easier for people to find us and understand what we do. The service we provide will remain the same.” Yes, different name, same one-star low-tier service that accomplishes absolutely nothing!

I contacted the ombudsman after receiving an unsatisfactory response from my wife's surgery. After my wife visited the doctor he sent what turned out to be a referal to the hospital that down played my wife's condition to the extent that the referal was refused. He knew 5 days later but I didn't find out for 6 weeks. He did not make any effort to try again and I persuaded the hospital that she must be seen. To cut a long story short she was not seen by a consultant until 3 months later. She was then prescribed the correct medication but by then a blood clot had formed in her heart and it dislodged and she had a stroke followed by another and died. NICE guidelines say that it is important for AFib that early medication is important.
Anyway my complaint reached the ombudsman a d there experts firstly refused to address the poorly worded referal and secondly said it didn't matter when medication was started. Although this goes against NICE the ombudsman backed the doctor. I believe that all that was important for them was to back the doctor although I am certain that it was his weak referal and his subsequent lack of action that delayed the correct medication being prescribed that led to her death. If he had referred correctly I am confident she would ha e received an emergency appointment. Just when you want the establishment to get you justice they are only interested in looking after the doctors.

As with every other review on here, the Ombudsman are a heinous corrupt organisation that do absolutely nothing to forward the claims of NHS patients. I went through an incredibly difficult situation having a surgery on the NHS where they didn't do proper consent procedures and did not take proper care of me pre- or post- surgery, and the Ombudsman came back to me and categorically ignored every single one of my concerns, siding with the NHS response at every turn. The Ombudsman only exists to let the government and NHS pretend that there is any oversight happening, it's a farce and I am disgusted at the way this has been dealt with.

The Parliamentary Health Ombudsman appears to operate as a corporate entity primarily focused on protecting health services rather than ensuring accountability. Instead of addressing concerns transparently, they often allow health providers to make unsubstantiated claims without requiring proper evidence. Case workers, failed to conduct thorough investigations and tend to accept doctors’ and nurses’ statements at face value. This approach undermines the quality of healthcare and contributes to rising corruption.

Additionally, organisations like the CQC and PALS seem to reinforce the existing system rather than challenge it, making it difficult for patients to receive fair and decent services.

Submitted a complaint about my dentist. Took an absolute age for any response.
Have used other ombudsman services and there is usually some dialogue prior to a decision being made.
No dialogue or consultation just a decision made that was in the dentists favour.
Looked very much to me like they side with the practitioner and just want to close cases down die to having a backlog.
Dentist was clearly at fault so only way forward now is the legal route.
Should not be this way....very poor all round.

If you have a serious grievance with solid grounds, whatever you do, do not go down this route. Take legal action, no matter how daunting that sounds. Like most Ombudsmen, they are there to protect the multicorps/institution that they profess to police. They will drag it out for as long as humanly possible aswell, gaslight level. And once used, you've got basically no option. Take the offenders to court.

PS
Interesting kwinkydinky: Their logo is 666. Not a Jesus vs Satan person myself but interesting and apt all the same.

Good luck, I wish I'd looked on here before making the mistake I did.

Completely discriminating against autistic people and learning disabilities the corrupt system investigating themselves they're only there to protect the system the abuse continues

Absolutely dire and sheer and utter incompetence. They took 20 months to not investigate properly and then did not get the right medical evdience independently reviewed and checked which was critical evidence. I can only conclude this is because the staff are none medical and do not have a clue what they are doing. This government department should be closed down and disbanded to save the tax payer some money. There is not enough accountability of this organisation as it appears they can do what they like with little option for the complianant to object and take further apart from a Judicial Review which most people cannot afford.

Seeing the ombudsman is dismissive towards disability discrimination under the equality act 2010 it's shocking.

Reading the other reviews, my complaint response from phso now makes sense. I was extremely shocked by the blaming, wording and dismissive tone. I am thoroughly convinced they are in fact in place to protect the nhs, allowing poor practice to continue to harm patients despite our national insurance paying for the service. It is vile and truly sickening that there are no true bodies one can go to. Extremely disappointed and would not recommend. Truly shocking.

Would give zero if I could.
Complete waste of time and energy.
Formal service complaint against them staff at multiple levels and only trite word that they didnt do things correctly. No improvement or action against staff who failed and still fail to provide service.
Pointless.

The PHSO is a wretched, fraudulent sham.

I obtained proof, via a Subject Access Request, that my caseworker had sat twiddling her thumbs for a year, pretending to investigate, but doing nothing except sending me petty, pernickety requests to reiterate what I'd already told her.

This is a deliberate technique to "run the clock down", i.e. to push the matter outside the PHSO's remit due to the length of time since it happened.

This is all part of the Modus Operandi of the PHSO - avoid investigating the NHS by any means necessary.

My caseworker ignored all my irrefutable and damning evidence of medical negligence by my GP surgery, e.g. ignoring my test results and deleting evidence of their own failures.

My Subject Access Request to get a copy of my caseworker's file revealed that she made ONE phone call to my GP surgery, which ironically they didn't even answer! That was the full extent of her so-called "investigation". Truly abysmal and laughable.

When I complained about my caseworker's lack of investigation, I got a snappy, arrogant, knee-jerk reply from her manager saying she'd done nothing wrong. He didn't even address my individual points.

The PHSO is a dishonest and despicable organisation. My MP has ignored my letters, so I have nowhere left to turn (I can't afford the legal fees for Judicial Review of the PHSO's misconduct).

The PHSO is a sham entity, a total fraud, and a waste of taxpayer money. It leaves people with absolutely nowhere left to turn after they have been failed by the NHS.

Plot twist: Within just a few hours of me posting this review, the PHSO put in a complaint to Trustpilot because I'd named my caseworker. Wow! So it seems the PHSO are capable of being razor sharp and taking swift remedial action... when it comes to looking after themselves. Such an impressive level of service. Yet when the PHSO were tasked with investigating gross negligence by my GP surgery, they spent a year doing absolutely nothing.

After a very distressing experience with NHS therapy, I discovered that my raw session notes had been shared with my GP without my permission. What made this even more upsetting was that the notes contained inaccurate and untrue allegations about my husband, someone I had not discussed during these sessions, aside from mentioning that I lived with him.
I raised a complaint with both my GP and the Trust, requesting that these notes be removed, but my request was refused and my care has been negatively impacted as a result. I then spent nearly a year going back and forth following the NHS complaints procedure, and with various regulatory bodies , which felt like hitting a brick wall. Throughout the process, I felt dismissed and undermined, and the experience was unnecessarily adversarial - at times it seemed designed to discourage me from pursuing the matter further.

Eventually, I escalated my complaint to the Ombudsman. Unfortunately, this proved equally disappointing. My case was closed almost immediately, without proper consideration of the evidence. The reason given was that I had not followed the NHS complaints procedure, which is incorrect and something I have clear evidence of and had explained in my complaint to the ombudsman.
When I challenged this, the case handler openly admitted that they had not reviewed my evidence before making their decision. I was also told that I had submitted my evidence electronically as a PDF; however, this is untrue, as all of my evidence had only just been sent by post. Subsequently, I was informed that there was no evidence on file, which directly contradicts both my submission and their earlier statements. Although it was later acknowledged that the case had been closed prematurely, I was also given misleading information about how it had been handled. How were they able to close my case when they hadn’t even looked at any of the evidence?

During my interaction with the case handler, I found his conduct to be dismissive and hostile. He repeatedly spoke over me in a raised voice, which felt intimidating and appeared intended to dominate the conversation - he seemed to get great satisfaction from this and I was not given a fair opportunity to fully explain my concerns.
In my view, the Ombudsman process itself warrants an investigation.

Just don't bother, they are truly terrible. Can't communicate, have no sense of moral compass and truly don't care. I can see that no one has any trust in them at all.

at best they assumed I was a private patient,

roughly seven months into my complaint with the western trust, (which is suppose too last 28days) i give the ombudsman a call and the man on the phone told me, they can do nothing for till, I have completely exhausted the complaint process! no exception's! 18 months total eventually I got the final reply from the western trust! I had been misdiagnosed and i asked for them too correct it! mistakes had been made in dr's file, that needed correct, and the result off the correction, would mean I would be able too prove damages in a private court case! they failed too do this, by the time the complaint process was exhausted! I was livid, spitting blood! I read on the website, that they are interested in injustice! so thats what I focus my energy on! the ombudsman response was cause i had a court case, I was a private patient!
when i recieved the reply i give them ring, how am i rivate patient when i never paid them any money! he says back cause i got legal aid, we can't help you! I tthought too myself I don't think i got legal aid! if you can prove that, that means they lied and then we will be interested! i never thought about, for a while, then i stumbled upon something in my lawyers file, that proved i didnt get any legal aid! (didn't bother too fill about a green form! i think t was! so i went back too the oombudsman, told that the orginal issuse hadn't been resolved and showed them evidence that I didn't recieve legal aid! they replied back telling me, after looking at the evidence, they stick by there original decision that I am a private patient! but this time I have an option off taking a judical review into there decision!

Absolutely unfit for purpose and drag your complaint on for years and protect unfit dentists. My contact was never there, never emailed, never rang, off ill, off on holiday. What a sham! They drag everything until the last minute on the last day and then say computer says NO! Incompetent doesn't even cover this department of useless individuals. Sack the lot and get rid of this money draining joke

I am updating this review because the PHSO flagged my previous version for naming a specific staff member. I have removed the name as requested, but the facts of their failure remain.

The PHSO is meant to be an independent check on the NHS, but in my experience, they are simply a rubber-stamp for negligence. My Lead Caseworker conducted an investigation that was dismissive, contradictory, and clinically blind.

After two years of being ignored by three NHS ENT consultants, the PHSO concluded the NHS 'did everything they could.' This is false. I was forced to pay for a private consultation where a specialist immediately diagnosed a Nasal Valve Collapse requiring surgery. The fact that the PHSO missed a structural physical deformity that a private doctor found in one visit proves their investigation was a total sham.

From the start, the Lead Caseworker was obstructionist. They repeatedly referred to us by the wrong names and treated our search for accountability like a nuisance. They claimed medical records were missing, then changed their story, and ultimately blamed me for refusing to return to the same doctors who had made baseless, insulting accusations about my personal life.

The PHSO effectively supported medical gaslighting. They tried to force me back into a room with doctors who failed me. They are a waste of taxpayer money that protects the Trust instead of the patient. I have now escalated this to a Senior Manager and the Ombudsman Assurance Team (OAT).