Summary: Mr A complains about a Council employee and a Trust employee sharing sensitive information in 2011. We will not take further action as the Council and the Trust have responded appropriately and an investigation would not achieve the outcomes Mr A wants.

The complaint

1. Mr A complains that in 2011 an employee from Surrey County Council (the Council) and Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) shared sensitive information with each other in conversations and labelled him as autistic.
2. In addition, Mr A says the Council employee, despite knowing the Trust employee was acting in breach of his personal rights, did not intervene or inform Mr A of the inappropriate behaviour.
3. Mr A says this episode has caused him emotional harm, and left him feeling violated, distressed and harassed.
4. As a result of this complaint Mr A would like formal apologies and an explanation.

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The Ombudsmen’s role and powers

5. The Ombudsmen have the power to jointly consider complaints about health and social care. Since April 2015, these complaints have been considered by a single team acting on behalf of both Ombudsmen. (Local Government Act 1974, section 33ZA,as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 18ZA)
6. The Ombudsmen investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. We use the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. If there has been fault, the Ombudsmen consider whether it has caused injustice or hardship (Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 3(1) and Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended).
7. If it has, they may suggest a remedy. Our recommendations might include asking the organisation to apologise or to pay a financial remedy, for example, for inconvenience or worry caused.  We might also recommend the organisation takes action to stop the same mistakes happening again.
8. The Ombudsmen provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. They may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if they believe:

• it is unlikely they would find fault, or
• it is unlikely they could add to any previous investigation by the bodies, or
• they cannot achieve the outcome someone wants

(Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 3(2) and Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

9. In making this assessment I have considered the information from the Council, the Trust and Mr A.
10. I considered the Ombudsmen’s Assessment Code.
11. I considered Mr A’s comments on my draft decision statement before making this final decision.

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My assessment

12. Mr A has said he obtained documents from the Trust earlier this year. He found records of telephone conversations between the Trust employee and Council employee.
13. He said this contained sensitive and misleading information and he complained to the Council about this in April 2023.
14. The Council had responded to a similar complaint in 2016 about letters sent between the Council and the Trust in 2011 containing sensitive information.
15. In response to the latest complaint the Council said this was information recorded by the Trust, but it did point to the 2016 response that stated there was no evidence of a breach in confidentiality or that the Council thought Mr A was autistic. It accepted it should have requested his permission about sharing information and it reminded staff of the issue of parental versus young person’s consent in a meeting.
16. The Council employee responded to Mr A personally and said they could not comment on someone else’s notes from a call that occurred over a decade ago.
17. The Trust, when approached by the Ombudsmen, said it had not received a complaint from Mr A. However, it said it could not carry out a robust investigation due to the events taking place 12 years ago.
18. The Council has given an appropriate response in stating that it was actually a Trust employee that recorded the information. In addition, it is reasonable that the Council employee cannot recall the conversations from 12 years ago. Therefore, there is nothing further the Council could add if it investigated.
19. In relation to the Trust, I agree that with the amount of time that has passed, its employee is unlikely to recall these conversations 12 years later. Therefore, it would not be possible to carry out a robust investigation.
20. Taking this into account, the Council and Trust have responded reasonably to this complaint, and we would not recommend they carry out any further action.

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Final decision

21. We will not investigate Mr A’s complaint as the organisations have responded reasonably and an investigation would be unlikely to achieve the outcomes he wants.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsmen

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman