Mr Graeme Slade
Designated Senior Complaints Officer
SSWAHS
Dear Mr Slade
I have your letters addressed to me and dated 18th and 19th November 2009 in which I am assured by you that the matters about which I "complained were being, and would be, investigated and a written response would be provided to me upon completion of the investigation."
I write to inform you that I have not yet received a written response to my complaints, nor have you even made any form of contact with me, the complainant.
Mr Slade I find it surprising that this has not happened given that in the NSW Health Code of Conduct there is specific mention that complaints such as mine (or indeed from any complainant) should be dealt with in a timely manner.
I also draw your attention to the SSWAHS Policy Directive: Complaints: Management of a Complaint or Concern about a Clinician - Document No: SSW_PD2007_035, which describes the procedures to be followed in the matter of all complaints received by the SSWAHS oganisation, and in particular, the role of the Designated Senior Complaints Officer.
I can assure you that as I was not anonymous in my complaints nor did I consider them to be frivolous in nature I did anticipate that there would be some action and some response as you had stated.
The fact that there has been no apparent action or response leads me to believe that SSWAHS is failing in its adherence to both the NSW Health Code of Conduct and its own Policy as stated above.
The alternative may be, however, that you, Mr Slade, have died, been terminated, or simply decided to part company with SSWAHS. Perhaps, if you are neither dead, nor been terminated, but still work for SSWAHS you might consider responding to this email. For myself I can assure you that I am not dead, and I still want to have a written response to those several complaints.
Yours sincerely,
......................................
Socrates was fortunate enough to be sent the above email from a member of the Southern Highlands community who has been following this blog and who has been waiting patiently for due process to be followed by SSWAHS. One has to ask the question - how long is long enough, and do investigations of complaints made to SSWAHS really need to take such a long, long time?
Of other note, of course is how does SSWAHS manage to investigate any complaint without even having anything like a simple conversation with a complainant? Surely, they do not rely on just the brief detail given in a written or verbal complaint to ensure that faults are rectified and that the quality of their services are improved.
In preceding posts, Socrates has given several examples of complaints being made directly to SSWAHS, and also through the advocacy and publication of those complaints in the Southern Highland News.
It could be an interesting exercise to see if any of those affected people or their families ever received anything like a written response from the SSWAHS Executive.
