What happens to the information you give us

A guide for complainants

When you make a complaint to us you will give us information, some of it personal. This page explains:

  • what will happen to that information;
  • who can see the information we have;
  • your right to see it;
  • other people’s right to see it;
  • how long we will keep it; and
  • what to do if you want to know more.

When we receive your complaint

When we receive your complaint we will record your name, address and other details of your complaint in a file that we hold:

  • on a computer;
  • on paper; or
  • both.

We will use the information you give us to decide what to do with your complaint. Often we need other information to help us to decide this. If we do, we might give details of you and your complaint to the organisation you have complained about. We might also ask for advice about your complaint from someone with specialist knowledge (for example, a health professional). 

If you do not want us to share the information you have given us with others, please tell us straight away.

When we have helped to put things right or cannot help you further

Sometimes we can help to put things right without the need for an investigation. Or there might be other reasons why we cannot help you further with your complaint. If so, we will send a letter explaining our reasons to:

  • you; and
  • your MP (if you have complained through them).

If your complaint is about the NHS, we may send details of our final letter to the NHS organisation or person you complained about. This is to help them learn from the complaint and to consider if they need to do things differently or better. If we do this, we will let you know. We will not share any of your personal information unless they already know about it.

 

In the case of complaints about government departments or other public organisations, we do not send a copy of that letter to the organisation complained about but we may let them know the outcome of your complaint.

When we decide to investigate a complaint

When we decide to investigate a complaint, we must tell:

  • the organisation and any person complained about.

At the same time, we will usually ask them for more information (including any papers and computer records they have).

We can also ask for information from anyone who we think can help us with our investigation. Again, this could be someone with specialist knowledge about a subject (such as a health professional) or someone who could tell us more about what happened and the impact it had on you (such as a relative or an employer). If we decide to contact someone other than the organisation complained about, we will usually tell you.

Draft reports

Towards the end of our investigation, we will send a copy of our draft report to:

  • you; and
  • the organisation and any person complained about.

This gives you and them a chance to comment on the facts we have included and our draft findings.

Our draft report is confidential. It will contain all the information from you and others that we have used to make our findings. You may share the draft report with people who can help you comment on its accuracy and content (for example, a family member or professional adviser), but we would expect you not to make it public.

Final reports

We will send a final report of our investigation to:

  • you;
  • your MP (if you complained through them); and
  • the organisation and any person complained about.

In health cases, we will also send our report without your name and address to:

  • the Secretary of State for Health; and
  • the Care Quality Commission or Monitor if we have identified a problem that may affect others.

Unless we decide to publish the report, we will not normally discuss its contents with anyone other than those involved in the investigation.

Once you have our final report it is up to you how you use it.

Published reports

Sometimes we will make a report to Parliament. This might be because our investigation has raised an important public policy issue, or because the organisation complained about has not accepted our recommendations. These reports are placed on our website and are available to the general public. We will let you know if our investigation of your complaint is to be published. Published reports will not contain your name or address.

Case summaries

We want to share the learning from complaints and work with public bodies to help them get things right. To do so, we produce summaries of cases we feel are of public interest. We include these summaries in theme-based reports, for example on NHS complaint handling. We will let you know if a summary of your complaint is to be published. A case summary will not contain your name or address.

Only our staff or people acting  on our behalf can see the records we hold about your complaint.We want to check that we are  providing a good service.  So we might use  your complaint for training.  If we do,  we will take out your name, address and any other details that may identify you.

We might also share your name  and telephone number with a company that does customer satisfaction research for  us.  That company will not know the  details of your complaint.  They will  only know: whether or not we investigated your complaint; whether we upheld it; and if you were not happy with the outcome of your  complaint and asked us to look at it again. To find out more about our customer  satisfaction survey, click here .If you would prefer not to take  part in the survey, let us know by phoning 0300 061 4222 (24-hour answerphone)  or by emailing us at customersurvey@ombudsman.org.uk.

You can ask to see any of the information we have on your  complaint.  You can ask either the person  who is handling your complaint, or our Freedom of Information and Data  Protection Team.

Most of the information we hold about your complaint will be  personal to you.  We will let you see  this information unless an exemption in the Data Protection Act applies.  For example, we might refuse you access if we  are in the middle of an investigation, or if the information we have has been  given to us in confidence.

 

Other people will not be able to see the information we hold  about your complaint under the Freedom of Information Act.  This is because other legislation says we cannot  release any of the information we obtain about a complaint unless we need to do so to carry out our work.

We will keep all information about you and your complaint for 2 years after we have taken our last action on your case. At that point we will delete some of the electronic and paper records. We will keep:

  • the form we use to help us assess what to do (kept  for 7 years);
  • the letter explaining how we have helped put  things right or why we cannot help you further (kept for 7 years);
  • the report of our investigation (kept permanently); and
  • any record we think is important historically  (kept for 7 years then we decide whether to keep it permanently).

We will keep your personal data,  including your name and address and some of the details about your complaint,  for 7 years.  After this, we will keep certain amount of information for our historical records.

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  • If you want to know more about our commitment to  keeping your information safe while using the learning from complaints to  improve public services and inform public policy, read our Information Promise.
  • Our Information Promise: Guidance on legal  obligations  gives details of the legislation that sets out how we handle, share and publish  information.
  • For more information about your rights under the  Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act, see the Information  Commissioner’s website at www.ico.gov.uk.
  • If you want to make a request for information,  please contact foiofficer@ombudsman.org.uk.
  • Our publication scheme gives details of all  the information we make freely available to the public.  It includes our records management policy  and casework retention and disposal schedule.