Summary
Mr C complained that NHS National Services Scotland’s practitioner services division (PSD) had changed his Community Heath Index (CHI – a ten digit number that identifies a patient in the NHS in Scotland) number without his permission. PSD had given Mr C a new CHI number in order that his results from a national screening programme could be recorded on the relevant database. Mr C was unhappy with this and complained that he did not want to be part of the national screening programme. He asked that the new CHI number was deleted. PSD agreed to do this.
We found that, ideally, PSD should have discussed the matter with Mr C before they changed his CHI number. We also found that PSD had apologised to Mr C for any distress or upset that had been caused. However, Mr C’s complaint was that PSD unreasonably made changes to his CHI number without his permission. We found that PSD were not required to seek Mr C’s permission to make changes to the CHI number. Therefore, we did not uphold this complaint.
Mr C also complained that PSD had failed to ensure that correct information was applied to the new CHI number. He said that PSD had entered a previous GP practice on his record. However, the evidence that PSD sent us showed that the correct details had been recorded for Mr C. There was no evidence that incorrect information had been recorded and we did not uphold this aspect of his complaint.
Finally, Mr C complained that PSD’s response to his complaint had been inaccurate. We found that part of the response had been inaccurate and we upheld this aspect of his complaint.
Recommendations
What we asked the organisation to do in this case: Apologise to Mr C that the response to his complaint included inaccurate information. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at https://www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.
We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201605709 as a PDF (12.5 KB) Updated: December 2, 2018