LATEST ISSUES 3rd August, 2026

I have drafted a document to the members of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee appealing for urgent legislative reform of the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman.

In its 2022 report the Committee called for the Government to prioritise Ombudsman reform and introduce a Bill before the end of the current Parliament. The Government responded by stating it ‘is not convinced that fundamental reform is a priority at the current time, nor that legislation is the answer to many of the identified issues.

I am asking for the members of the committee to bring renewed pressure to bear upon the current government to raise this issue in Parliament ahead of a serious and radical overhaul of the PHSO.

I will, in time, be copying ALL current government MPs in on my document.

Here are the opening paragraphs of my drafted 27427 word document.

'Simon Hoare MP Conservative North Dorset

Richard Baker MP Labour Glenrothes and Mid Fife

Markus Campbell-Savours MP Labour Penrith and Solway

Charlotte Cane MP Liberal Democrat Ely and East Cambridgeshire

Sam Carling MP Labour North West Cambridgeshire

Lauren Edwards MP Labour Rochester and Strood

Peter Lamb MP Labour Crawley

John Lamont MP Conservative Berwick, Roxburgh and Selkirk

Richard Quigley MP Isle of Wight West

Luke Taylor MP Liberal Democrat Sutton and Cheam

Michelle Welsh MP Labour Sherwood Forest

Copy to Luke Murphy MP Basingstoke

‘Barely 2% of all complaints receive a full investigation and in 2025/26 just 1.1% received any form of uphold (this data includes partial upholds).’ -

‘Record-breaking year for PHSO  By Della Reynolds on July 27, 2026

THE PHSO IS WHERE COMPLAINTS GO TO DIE.

Dear members of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee,

I am writing to you out of serious concern at the long-standing inability of the  Parliamentary Health Ombudsman Service to competently fulfil the role of investigating complaints about UK government departments, other public organisations and the NHS in England. This letter implores the PACAC to bring the full weight of its authority to bear upon Parliament and call for immediate, radical legislative reform of the PHSO.

I am absolutely aware the committee does not look at individual cases or specific complaints. I am NOT asking any of the committee to intervene nor act on my behalf. I AM forwarding a very real human story that I believe typifies THOUSANDS OF damaged and disenfranchised service users. My story, outlined in detail below, meticulously presents multiple examples of appalling clinical incompetence, clinical neglect, psychological abuse, systemic procedural failures, casual disregard for the NHS Constitution and NICE guidelines as well as dishonesty, lies and corruption. The story below focuses on ONE NHS Trust. The PHSO has, by dint of refusal to uphold the FULL SCOPE of my complaint, effectively condoned wrongdoing on a criminal scale.  Similar clinical neglect, procedural failures and abuses have been replicated by a SECOND NHS Trust and I have protested inaction and injustice by way of THREE HUNGER STRIKES and was cynically and inappropriately referred by a healthcare manager, using false information, to the government’s counter-terrorism initiative, PREVENT after peacefully protesting outside Parliament and Downing Street last year. The full story of my journey through mental healthcare in Basingstoke is journalled in my blog at www.fourandtwentydeadcrows.com.

I write to you as a single father and advocate to a mentally ill daughter. We have both been appalling underserved, clinically neglected and abused by two NHS Foundation Trusts providing mental health service to the local Basingstoke area. During my attempts to hold individuals and institutions to account I uncovered real evidence of gross systemic failures by both Trusts alongside the cynical use of ‘lawfare’ and blatant corruption by clinicians and leadership.

My complaint about the first Trust, the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, was investigated by their Patient Advisory Liaison Service. That investigation was incompetently handled and the findings, made in writing to me in 2022, were risible. I immediately escalated my complaint to the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman.

It took the PHSO over TWENTY-EIGHT MONTHS to appoint caseworker Thomas Body to my complaint and over THIRTY-TWO MONTHS between my initial complaint being received by the PHSO and senior caseworker, Thomas Body’s decision not to investigate the FULL SCOPE OF my complaint.

I compiled a detailed ‘feedback’ document and forwarded this to the PHSO on the 28^th April, 2025 in accordance with the invitation embedded within their own policy. The PHSO ignored my ‘feedback document until my local MP intervened a year later.

My original complaint about the second Trust, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust ( now Hampshire & IOW Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust ) was investigated internally and concluded, more or less, to my satisfaction.

I have made further complaints about Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and had those complaints investigated internally and concluded, though less satisfactorily. My most recent complaint about Hampshire & IOW Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust ( formally Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust ) was originally dismissed by new management. That particular complaint was finally investigated and closed without resolution. I was advised to escalate this complaint to the PHSO but I declined as I no longer have confidence in the Ombudsman.

The understanding that the PHSO will, invariably, refuse to uphold complaints is shared among Patient Advisory Liaison Service investigators and Trust CEO when they sign off on completed investigations. It is baked into the entire complaints system.

The PHSO is where complaints go to die.

And that understanding permeates the culture, eroding standards, corrupting ethics and contributing to the slow wretched decline of the NHS. Clinicians grow lazy, take liberties and shortcuts around policy and procedures, causing real harm.

I have copied and pasted TWO accounts below that make for compelling reading.'