The correspondence below shows a response from NMC in relation to my concerns and complaints, most of which I raised in August 2020. The red text is my reply back to them and also serves as annotations here. As you can see, the NMC have ignored most of the complaint and made matters worse in their responses. The final reply from Ben Wesson, head of customer services is derisory at best and serves nothing other than further proof that the NMC ignore complaints. Correspondences as below:
The email is in response to my complaint which was raised with the NMC during August 2020. Despite waiting from August 2020 until present date, I am no further forward in regards to my complaints nor concerns. A copy of the email is below along with my annotations in red text.
Thank you for your emails dated 16, 21, 22 October as well as 4 and 6 November 2020. The latter followed a conversation you had with Jennifer Hay, Enquiries and Complaints Manager. I am sorry that you are not happy with the service you have received from us regarding your requests, as well as our last response to you dated 13 October 2020.
Despite reiterating my complaints and concerns via email and phone calls as you have stated above, they have all been ignored yet again. For example, in conversation with Jennifer Hay, I was told that my complaint of making 26 or 27 phone calls to the FOI team in order to chase up the request would be pulled from the system and looked into. This, along with other concerns and complaints has not been regarded within your response.
I have looked into these issues under our corporate complaints process. This included a review of your emails and discussions with Graham Ostle, Information and Data Requests Manager, Emma Bailey, Contact Centre Manager and Ade Obaye, Head of Quality of Decision Making. Your requests for information in August 2020 You mentioned that you had been chasing an update to your request for information which you made in August 2020. Our records show that you spoke to Ade in August 2020 about your requests. There is a suggestion that you had asked Ade not to submit this on your behalf because you intended to submit a new request yourself, and that you also wanted to send an N1 County Court form to our Information and Data Request Team. This is why we did not respond to your request until you raised it directly with our Information and Data Requests Team. Please be assured that we did not ignore your request in August, but I am sorry if it came across in this way. You suggested that our Data Manager ignored your request in June and July 2020. Please be assured that we did not ignore your request. We understood that you did not want us to process the request you made in August 2020 on your behalf before you had submitted the Court form, but I am sorry if this was not the case.
You have the audacity to assure me that you did not ignore my request in August – despite the fact that I had chased this up with 26 or 27 phone calls to your FOI team plus numerous phone calls to managers and other staff outside the FOI team.
If what you say is correct then why did you tell me it had been responded to in September 2020 given the fact of what you attempt to claim above – that you understood I did not want you to respond to the request until I had submitted a Court form!!! This response is preposterous, the court form is to get you to perform and supply me with the request in which I have been chasing up repeatedly.
For NMC to attempt to claim it did not respond to my request and was waiting for an N1 court form in order to respond is simply pathetic reasoning.
In regards to this, I would like clear data in which you came to the conclusion that I do not want you to supply me with the request until I had sent you an N1 form, this obviously shows a lack of due diligence on behalf of the NMC.
If what you say is correct then why did you tell me it had been responded to in September 2020 given the fact of what you attempt to claim above – that you understood I did not want you to respond to the request until I had submitted a Court form!!! This response is preposterous, the court form is to get you to perform and supply me with the request in which I have been chasing up repeatedly.
For NMC to attempt to claim it did not respond to my request and was waiting for an N1 court form in order to respond is simply pathetic reasoning.
In regards to this, I would like clear data in which you came to the conclusion that I do not want you to supply me with the request until I had sent you an N1 form, this obviously shows a lack of due diligence on behalf of the NMC.
Incorrect dates in our letter dated 13 October 2020
I have seen that the response you received from us on 13 October contained incorrect information about when we responded to your Information requests. I am very sorry for the distress this has caused you.
I have seen that the response you received from us on 13 October contained incorrect information about when we responded to your Information requests. I am very sorry for the distress this has caused you.
With all respect, apologies are worthless. I had during the times of believing my data had been sent to unauthorised person/s contacted yourselves repeatedly in order to try and find the likelihood of where the data was, whether it had been sent via courier or email in order to ascertain its whereabouts. Despite requesting to speak with DPO, this failed. Nobody from NMC could tell me where the data was likely to be, managers could not even confirm whether it was sent to be via email or post, neither could they confirm generic details whether you usually send via email or post. You have failed to answer this concern during the times of my distress when I contacted NMC on a multitude of occasions in order to ascertain the likelihood of where my personal information was.
We said that we received and responded to your Subject Access Request and information request in September 2020. This should have read September 2019.
You have failed to answer as to why your DPO / Data Manager provided this incorrect information in addition to why the complaints team supplied this information. If what you state is true above, that you genuinely believed that I had asked you not to process the request (despite me chasing it up repeatedly), then why state the request had been sent to me in September 2020 in relation to my complaints of not receiving said request.
Clearly the NMC is trying to fob me off in regards to this matter, this can not be refuted – although, I welcome any further explanations for the purpose of my blog.
Clearly the NMC is trying to fob me off in regards to this matter, this can not be refuted – although, I welcome any further explanations for the purpose of my blog.
You did not receive a Subject Access Request response in September 2020, and I can therefore appreciate that you were anxious about the possibility that we had sent your personal information elsewhere.
Nobody within the NMC could inform me of the likelihood of where my data was actually sent to despite the fact that I had made many repeated phone calls to yourselves during the time that I was led to believe unauthorised person/s were the recipients of my personal information.
Despite this and my legal letter to you (letter before action) you have failed to respond with any form of remedy in regards to the distress I endured due to your repeated actions of a data breach of inaccurate data which led me to believe a data breach of data being disclosed to an unauthorised person/s had occurred. I clearly sent you a letter before action in this regard which you have blatantly ignored in your response to me despite the fact that your own solicitor requested me to not accept my solicitors terms of business until such time that you could respond to me. I honoured this request and waited for the response to find out that the response was derisory at best. I can confirm that we have not shared your personal information elsewhere.
Despite this and my legal letter to you (letter before action) you have failed to respond with any form of remedy in regards to the distress I endured due to your repeated actions of a data breach of inaccurate data which led me to believe a data breach of data being disclosed to an unauthorised person/s had occurred. I clearly sent you a letter before action in this regard which you have blatantly ignored in your response to me despite the fact that your own solicitor requested me to not accept my solicitors terms of business until such time that you could respond to me. I honoured this request and waited for the response to find out that the response was derisory at best. I can confirm that we have not shared your personal information elsewhere.
You can only confirm this since I pointed this out to yourselves stating in response to your reply and reply from data manager in which they stated 2020 again.
Your investigations into the data breach was inaccurate.
Your investigations into the data breach was inaccurate.
We did not write to you, or anyone else, in response to any requests relating to you in September 2020. I am attaching all of the responses to your information requests that we have sent to you to date for reference. In our last response, we did not verify the dates of our responses to you, which is why they appear incorrectly on the letter. We wanted to make sure that you received a response in a timely manner, but I have reminded the team of the significance of our attention to detail. Again, I am sorry for the impact that this error had on you. I hope I have reassured you that we have not shared your personal data with any third party.
This is too little too late. Ideally you should have informed me of this during the first phone call I made to you when I was alarmed and distressed under the belief that you had sent my data to unauthorised recipients. You could have also confirmed this during subsequent phone calls I made to yourselves in regards to this matter but failed to do so.
When you spoke to Jennifer on 4 November 2020, you made a new Subject Access Request. Jennifer passed this to the Information and Data Requests Team, who will respond by 4 December 2020.
Incorrect, I did not make a new SAR! This is in my opinion just a blatant evasion of the truth in an awful attempt to sidestep this area of complaint.
Jennifer asked me to forward the request I had made in August. This can not be construed as a new request. The request forwarded showed that I had made a previous request prior to August and a written request in August. To take this information and attempt to imply that I had made a new request in addition to your earlier attempts in claiming preposterously that I had requested you to not supply the request is at best disingenuous.
The case against Nurse Parry
You mentioned that there was a delay in us progressing the case involving Nurse Parry. In our last letter, we said that we had asked you to provide consent for us to disclose details of your referral of Nurse Parry in order to continue our investigation. We are grateful that you provided this to us on 30 October 2020.
You mentioned that there was a delay in us progressing the case involving Nurse Parry. In our last letter, we said that we had asked you to provide consent for us to disclose details of your referral of Nurse Parry in order to continue our investigation. We are grateful that you provided this to us on 30 October 2020.
Again, as per your previous response I consider this to be another blatant evasion of the truth. For example, despite my emails and conversations concerning this you have failed to provide any reasoning as to why you had ignored the request I sent you via recorded or registered post in 2018 (or 2019, I need to check these records and my email trail). Furthermore, you have failed to respond to the fact that I had been chasing up referral for Nurse Parry during the last 2 years and why it has taken yourselves 2 years to tell me that you had not received consent.
It is almost as if you ignore consent, for example, consent was then sent to yourselves in August 2020 via email which you had received as you replied to it.In addition to the above and leading on from the above, you have failed to answer why it has taken NMC 2 years to investigate the wrong nurse despite me chasing up the correct referral.
It is almost as if you ignore consent, for example, consent was then sent to yourselves in August 2020 via email which you had received as you replied to it.In addition to the above and leading on from the above, you have failed to answer why it has taken NMC 2 years to investigate the wrong nurse despite me chasing up the correct referral.
Neither have you answered my concern that whilst you had been investigating the wrong nurse as you were at cross purposes in relation to the referral, then why it took you 2 years and lately extensive contact with Ade in relation to a referral in regards to a previous nurse that is no longer registered with youselves.
I could have informed you about a year or more ago that said nurse was no longer employed as a RN – this is essentially public information and such information can be gleaned from your website. Despite this, your team essentially wasted its and my time as did not perform this simple check.Leading on from the above and in order to assist the NMC in not wasting its time, then I would like to make a suggestion that any ftp proceeding to investigation is at all times linked to whether the nurse is indeed registered with yourselves or not. Afterall, this can be done automatically via your computer systems and would save people waiting 2 or so years for something that can not be investigated in addition to saving NMC time in phone calls trying to understand the case.Had you done this, then this investigation would have closed over a year ago.
I could have informed you about a year or more ago that said nurse was no longer employed as a RN – this is essentially public information and such information can be gleaned from your website. Despite this, your team essentially wasted its and my time as did not perform this simple check.Leading on from the above and in order to assist the NMC in not wasting its time, then I would like to make a suggestion that any ftp proceeding to investigation is at all times linked to whether the nurse is indeed registered with yourselves or not. Afterall, this can be done automatically via your computer systems and would save people waiting 2 or so years for something that can not be investigated in addition to saving NMC time in phone calls trying to understand the case.Had you done this, then this investigation would have closed over a year ago.
Charlotte Spink, Decision Review Manager, acknowledged this on 5 November 2020 and advised you that a Screening Officer will be in contact with you shortly about the next steps.
You have failed to answer my concerns in relation to safeguarding. This is, NMC has evidence that a RN is working with vulnerable people, that the RN lies and falsifies medical information to the detriment of vulnerable people, that a government department has listed some but not all of the lies in addition to all of the lies being listed by my own medical health team.
Where is your due diligence shown in order for you to adhere to your own safeguarding policy?Given the fact that I have been chasing this up for around 2 years (albeint at cross purposes with yourselves for the duration of this time despite me naming the nurse) – plus the fact that consent was sent previously either last year or the year before, in addition to consent being sent again in August 2020, you only acknowledge that consent was given in November 2020. Why is this?
It is almost as if NMC is placing deliberate barriers in this instance, however, given this and my other complaints it is blatantly obvious that barriers are being placed and this is systemic course of actions within the NMC.
Where is your due diligence shown in order for you to adhere to your own safeguarding policy?Given the fact that I have been chasing this up for around 2 years (albeint at cross purposes with yourselves for the duration of this time despite me naming the nurse) – plus the fact that consent was sent previously either last year or the year before, in addition to consent being sent again in August 2020, you only acknowledge that consent was given in November 2020. Why is this?
It is almost as if NMC is placing deliberate barriers in this instance, however, given this and my other complaints it is blatantly obvious that barriers are being placed and this is systemic course of actions within the NMC.
Our method of contact with you In your email dated 20 October 2020, you mentioned that you no longer wish to receive phone calls from us. I confirm that we will not contact you on the phone unless otherwise advised by you.
The only time you have had permission to contact me via phone was the few times I was trying to deal with this complaint via managers or other call handing staff. It was imperative your DPO contacted me via phone, however, they failed to do this in order to appease my worries of missing data.
The purpose of not wanting phone calls is in respect of my mental health and daily battles to overcome problems. There are only certain times of the day or certain days I would be adequately able to deal with phone calls. If you can appreciate, dealing with systemic incompetence for 3 years already does not help my mental health. However, I intend to pursue the complaint and concerns in an effort to go some way in showing the NMC its failings and it can act accordingly to prevent such failings.
We would be more than happy to implement any other adjustments in the way we contact you in order to reduce the potential stress that you may experience during the fitness to practise process.
Actually investigate it would be more than ideal. Given the fact that I have this year spent in my estimation around 300 hours in writing emails and phone calls with yourselves, it would be more prudent if you use this time to investigate concerns which are detrimental to vulnerable members of the public. For example, my rather conservatve estimation of 300 hours wasting time with yourselves this year has done absolutely nothing in the progression of the crux of the matter, the ftp referral.
It would take NMC literally 5 minutes to read the evidence presented by DWP in order to see that the nurse has lied to the detriment of a vulnerable person and has lied on more than one occasion. Contrast this 5 minutes to my estimation of 300 hours on pointless communications – this simply shows further that NMC is unfit for purpose, treats vulnerable public with contempt and puts the nursing profession into disrepute.
It would take NMC literally 5 minutes to read the evidence presented by DWP in order to see that the nurse has lied to the detriment of a vulnerable person and has lied on more than one occasion. Contrast this 5 minutes to my estimation of 300 hours on pointless communications – this simply shows further that NMC is unfit for purpose, treats vulnerable public with contempt and puts the nursing profession into disrepute.
Please write to me if you have any such requests.
My request is more or less outlined above,that is to stop wasting time in a futile process of wasting my time in investigating a wrong nurse and a nurse you can not investigate as is no longer registered; this fact I could have pointed out to yourself a year or so ago.
My request is also for you to recognise my safeguarding concerns and expedite the referral based on the fact that you should have been doing this over the last 2 years or so in addition to that it would only take yourselves less than 5 minutes to ascertain in no unclear terms that the nurse had deliberately falsified medical information. DWP points this out. You have also been informed of the DWP evidence previously, repeatedly in addition to informing you of my own medical team pointing out extensively as well as outside my own medical team – an independent GP who has pointed out this is systemic abuse.
In other words, and without trying to sound rude, govern yourselves accordingly and do your jobs of protecting vulnerable members of the public and not putting the nursing profession into disrepute in your repeated failure to investigate serious concerns which are evidenced.
My request is also for you to recognise my safeguarding concerns and expedite the referral based on the fact that you should have been doing this over the last 2 years or so in addition to that it would only take yourselves less than 5 minutes to ascertain in no unclear terms that the nurse had deliberately falsified medical information. DWP points this out. You have also been informed of the DWP evidence previously, repeatedly in addition to informing you of my own medical team pointing out extensively as well as outside my own medical team – an independent GP who has pointed out this is systemic abuse.
In other words, and without trying to sound rude, govern yourselves accordingly and do your jobs of protecting vulnerable members of the public and not putting the nursing profession into disrepute in your repeated failure to investigate serious concerns which are evidenced.
It can clearly be seen that one complaint with NMC leads to a tangent of other complaints whilst the crux of the matter is not progressed – this can also be seen on a multitude of occasions.
Thank you again for getting in touch. Please contact our Customer Enquiries and Complaints team at complaints@nmc-uk.org if you need any further clarification.
I have pointed out some but not all of my complaints and concerns which you have not addressed above, however, this is only in response to your reply to me.
There are other elements which have not been addressed which I may or may not point out to you in due course, however you can see these other elements which you have ignored as per my past email and phone communications.
For example, I requested FOI using a keyword search, I said keyword search to pre-empt your excuse that you can not supply the data as it is not a hardcoded category. You have failed to supply this data. You simply respond with an excuse saying it cant be provided as the data is not hardcoded, however, as per my request i did not ask for data hardcoded, i asked for a keyword search and did so in order to pre-empt your excuse of not providing said data. Despite this, you still respond with the excuse despite me pre-empting said excuse. You have failed also to provide any form of follow up in regards to my appeal in this matter.
There are other elements which have not been addressed which I may or may not point out to you in due course, however you can see these other elements which you have ignored as per my past email and phone communications.
For example, I requested FOI using a keyword search, I said keyword search to pre-empt your excuse that you can not supply the data as it is not a hardcoded category. You have failed to supply this data. You simply respond with an excuse saying it cant be provided as the data is not hardcoded, however, as per my request i did not ask for data hardcoded, i asked for a keyword search and did so in order to pre-empt your excuse of not providing said data. Despite this, you still respond with the excuse despite me pre-empting said excuse. You have failed also to provide any form of follow up in regards to my appeal in this matter.
I draw your attention to a reply from Gemma, NMC lawyer in which she states: “Thank you again for raising these issues and I do apologise that you have found the process challenging. We are taking your concerns seriously.” Evidently, this is not the case. If you took my concerns seriously you would have provided substantive response to all my concerns. In turn, all I have received is a preposterous response to my concerns which does not even address all of them. Furthermore, if you took my concerns seriously then in regards to my letter before action in addition to me notifying yourselves that it would be my intention to proceed with legal action via the same solicitor who is taking legal action against DWP for their data breach, then you would have made some form of effort to appease me via remedy – ie, payment for damages. Clearly, not taking my concerns seriously as it can be seen that your lawyer has negated this fact and has not made any effort to provide remedy in order to prevent me from seeking legal action.
As discussed with yourselves on the phone earlier today, it is my intention to proceed with legal action and that I would do so today by sending email back to the same solicitors dealing with DWP to accept their terms of business. However, I have decided against this at this moment in time simply because I know I will not handle the process of explaining extensively to the solicitor or his case handles the process and statements and knowing that I have to keep up with their demands to proceed, knowing i have to answer promptly their requests for informations and statements. If I do not do so, (as in the current case of DWP) they will inform me that they consider I have broken their nowin nofee agreement and then I am liable for their costs.
Having said the above, whilst I am not in the position to do this at the moment (as i wrongly adivsed on phone that i would do so today), it will be my intention to do so in the future. Ideally, i would like to wait for the current legal case against DWP to conclude. This however does not preclude me from initiating proceedings with no further reference to yourselves.
Having said the above, whilst I am not in the position to do this at the moment (as i wrongly adivsed on phone that i would do so today), it will be my intention to do so in the future. Ideally, i would like to wait for the current legal case against DWP to conclude. This however does not preclude me from initiating proceedings with no further reference to yourselves.
Please note the fact that the solicitor has stated their claim would be related to the manner in which you dealt with GDPR both before and after the data breach. They are only accepting the case based on the data breach but have indicated that as part of the claim they would give regards to the DSAR and your course of actions surrounding this also. In my opinion and solicitors opinion your course of actions have been failure so far.
Your latest response to me (this response) was supposed to take my concerns seriously, you have failed to do so.
Your latest response to me (this response) was supposed to take my concerns seriously, you have failed to do so.
I have informed you that I would be blogging about my experiences with yourselves.
I have informed you that PSA have requested copies of complaints / letters.
I have informed you that its my intention to proceed with legal action unless you provide remedy.
I have informed you that PSA have requested copies of complaints / letters.
I have informed you that its my intention to proceed with legal action unless you provide remedy.
I have informed you about my issues concerning your lack of safeguarding.
Despite all of the above, it is clear that you are not taking my complaints and concerns with the merit they deserve.
Despite all of the above, it is clear that you are not taking my complaints and concerns with the merit they deserve.
I can only shudder at the thought of other vulnerable people pursuing your unfit for purpose processes as the majority can not adequately able to pursue complaints and concerns.
Given the fact that this complaint response was a direct action of my previous complinat in that previous response was not substantive, it is at best derisory and a blatant attempt to not answer said concerns and complaints and simply fob me off – at least you are consistent.
The logic of telling me you had not proceeded with DSAR and waiting for me to make a claim for you to proceed with it is laughable.
You can choose to reply to this or not, bearing in mind that I now have zero confidence in NMC‘s abilities to be fit for purpose. It is clear now that the only remedy I have is to accept my solicitors terms of business in addition to preparing for a judicial review for when you provide me with further lies or excuses (as you did in 2017) as to why you cant investigate the referral.
Any reply, or lack of reply will of course be blogged.
