Decision Report 201706529

Summary

Miss C and another member of her family applied for welfare powers for an adult relative. As part of that process, a Mental Health Officer (MHO) interviewed Miss  C over the phone. When Miss C saw the MHO's report, she felt what she said during the interview had not been reflected accurately. Miss C complained that the partnership refused to change the report.

We found that the partnership concentrated on the issue of what was actually said or not said during the phone interview. We were critical of this approach, as it meant the central issue of what was the correct position in relation to Miss C's adult relative was overlooked. We looked at the MHO's handwritten note of the phone interview, which we found supported Miss C's view of the phone interview. The partnership did not consider the handwritten note as being the best available record of the call, which we found to be a failure on their part.

We accepted that the opportunity to review a draft of the report was not possible in the circumstances. However, as a matter of good practice, we expected that an interview would start with an explanation of what would happen with the information provided at the interview, and would end with the interviewer reflecting back to the interviewee their understanding of the points made, and seeking confirmation of that understanding. This is standard interviewing procedure, and one we expect all staff conducting interviews to be aware of. We upheld Miss C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Miss C for a failure to properly investigate and respond to her concerns. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• Staff should be aware of and conduct interviews in line with good interviewing practice.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• Staff investigating complaints at stage 2 of the complaints process should be sufficiently trained in good investigative practice.

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.