Advice on my legal rights after receiving behaviour letter from NHS Trust

[narcissus]

Firstly i am not sure what section of legal field this will fit i have received after a stay in hospital and an initial visit to AE letter warning me of my behaviour i had attended a hospital via ambulance because of heart issues i ended up being placed in the waiting room for in excess of 14 hours and 26 hours in total before admission, the claim that i was rude and used profanity is the crux of the letter . Despite not being very happy at my waiting time i consider myself intelligent enough to express myself without profanity and know the accusations to be completely untrue . I need to know how i can appeal this letter the letter was shared with my GP i need to know if this has breached any of my rights in doing this ? I need to know what type of solicitors legal firm deal with this sort of dispute ?

Any expertise on the subject i am guessing i am not the only person to have ever suffered this would be very much appreciated .

[Manxman]

I'm a retired NHS manager.

In what way have they "warned" you of your behaviour? Have they told you not to behave in the same way again "or else...", or what?

Who is the letter from? Is it from the Trust Secretary or their office?

What sort of outcome do you want?

If you are satisfied that the allegations about your behaviour are untrue and have no basis in fact, I think I'd be inclined in the first instance to reply to whoever has written the letter and point out to them that the allegations are untrue and unfounded. Send a copy to your GP.

If no satisfaction, make a formal complaint. You'll find details of how to do so on their website.

(You may find that their website tries to divert complaints from members of the public via the trust's Patients' Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) but you may prefer to go straight to the Trust's Secretary who you'll find on their website under something like "About us" or "Who we are".)

If none of that gets you anywhere I'm not sure what else you could do.

What do you think a solicitor would do? If you wanted to start a defamation action it would cost you about £10k before got past square 1.

Or do you think there's been some kind of GDPR breach? (Perhaps a bit unlikely as NHS trusts are quite experienced at handling sensitive data...)

[narcissus]

Thanks for your reply i have been doing a little research of my own and i wonder if you might be able to confirm the following . The letter by the way was from Estates and Facilities Director . They apparently have a weekly panel .
Anyway i was reading how these letters should be presented to the recipient what is hard to differentiate is if this is NHS or the actual Trust Protocol ? It says a letter should provide details of whom it is to be shared with , if the letter will be on the patients permanent records , if it is time limited and also that it should provide details of how to complain and the appeals process . My letter has none of these except it says cc and my Gps name and address ? My view after thought on this is that if i accept the process as closed then that is an admission of guilt and i am not guilty of these claims . That leaves me in a impossible position of no option but to seek at the very least an apology . For want of sounding dramatic my thought process also makes me ask if under this trust i can without even being contacted be basically sent to the gallows so to speak, then its not unreasonable for me to come to the conclusion that further attendance for any reason within the trust either admittance or outpatient may result in further events that are purely fictional but leave me once again without being able to defend myself ? Therefore it may be argued that i am perhaps constructively being prevented from obtaining basic health care , that may i agree sound far fetched but it does present a situation where i would be a fool to walk into the lions den twice? Sort of shame me once shame on you shame me twice shame on me if you take my meaning ?
The other issue with this sort of complaint is that given the status of those who are making that being "nurses" it has a sort of why would they lie element about it no smoke without fire ........your guilty even if innocent . Its a bit like who is the judge going to believe you or the Traffic Officer most people would give an the obvious answer right ? So in answer to your question as to the what outcome that i would say at present is just an apology and removal if present on my records of the complaint .
I have a little experience of dealing with the NHS and was also wondering if NHS Resolutions might be a way forward , with regards to what i want solicitor to do that probably is further down the line i would imagine even finding one interested in this area of law whatever that may fall into will itself be very hard going .

[Manxman]

Forgive me for asking, but is it the case that you simply do not know what they are talking about, or are you aware of some incident that occurred that could perhaps have been interpreted as unacceptable behaviour on your part?

If you are satisfied that you behaved perfectly correctly and that the letter is making false allegations against you, then if I were you i'd reply to the Director of Estates & Facilities*, complain that the allegations are false, set out your version of events and ask for an apology. I'd also copy that into my GP (and anybody else you know it's been shared with) and tell the trust to remove the allegation from any of your records.

I don't know what processes are meant to be followed whan a trust writes such a "warning" letter to a patient, but if you think they may not have been followed in your case, say so.

If that doesn't resolve the issue then, depending upon how strongly you feel about this, you could raise a formal complaint as suggested in my previous post.

If that doesn't work I simply don't know whether you have any "legal" avenues open to you.

Even if you do reach a satisfactory resolution you might want to make a SAR to the trust and to your GP after 3 months or so to see what - if anything - is recorded against you.

Again, if I were you, I wouldn't allow this letter to discourage me from seeking necessary medical treatment from this trust.


*Responsibility for site security and staff safety probably falls under E&F. NHS trusts are very keen on advertising their "zero tolerance" in respect of what they see as bad behaviour directed at staff. I think sometimes staff might be a little over-eager to recognise anxiety, worry and exasperation as threatening or abusive.