Failings Within North Wales Vascular Services - #BCUHB

The Extraordinary Meeting of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board held on the 21st May, 2020, to discuss the Review of its Vascular Services was a complete shambles.

From the 'technical' difficulties experienced through to the final decision by the Board to review the Review. Were part of the technical difficulties caused by some Board Members complaining they were not comfortable being on screen for the meeting ?

The Report - described as a whitewash by members of the public and some employees - is highly critical of the Health Board and its decision to close the vascular services at Ysbyty Gwynedd and centralise the service at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

The Review raises many questions for diabetics and renal patients and some of the data for limb loss and antibiotic use should be of high concern for everyone.

Ultimately, it is yet another report into Local Government Organisations in North Wales that raises issues of bullying and staff fearing for their jobs if they speak out.

Sitting on the Board from Gwynedd are R. Medwyn Hughes, County Councillor for the Hendre ward, Bangor and Morwena Edwards, who is an Associate Director of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

Morwena is also the Director of Cyngor Gwynedd Social Services - both Adult and Children's Departments.
 
There have been 5 Ombudsman for Wales Investigations highly critical of the departments that Mrs Edwards has overall responsibility for - in the last four years

There may be more as these Departments have a history of sitting on critical Reports, whilst trumpeting mediocrity.

One Ombudsman's Report highlights an Independent Investigating Officer feeling 'overwhelmed' and 'bullied' after a meeting with Head of Department, Marian Parry Hughes and the senior Operational Manager. Aled Gibbard amongst others to change the findings of her Report.

More on that here -  https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2019/06/bullying-cyngor-gwynedd-council.html

Four to five pages regarding a Social Worker undertaking an inadequate assessment of an autistic child's needs and the withholding and censoring of personal information by a senior manager deleted along with Recommendations for improvement.

To someone with no knowledge everything looks rosy in the garden - the data is false.

Recommendations for improvement and to create a pathway for autistic individuals to receive support and SS assessment have been agreed to - so where is it ?

Concerns that the legal documents and data are being manipulated to cover for bad behaviour and poor management have been raised with a Cabinet Member but as yet no response has been forthcoming.

Now the Ombudsman for Wales had arranged a phone call conversation with the Director, Morwena Edwards, to discuss matters of non compliance of Ombudsman's recommendations.

This call was arranged three weeks in advance but the Council cancelled the meeting one hour before the arranged time and the Council told the Ombudsman that they would be sending a letter instead.

This letter did obviously not impress the Ombudsman as the CEO was then summoned to discuss non compliance - alongside other agenda items, in Cardiff.

Concerns have been raised that the story as explained by the CEO and the Senior Safeguarding Officer to a Gwynedd Care Scrutiny Committee is misleading. Questions have been asked concerning the truthfulness of the Officer's statements but no answer has been forthcoming.

Officer's promoted above their abilities ? A social worker being moved to a third sector organisation to protect reputations ? - and their pension ? Social workers lying and senior managers colluding in cover up ?

All that is missing is a sex scandal..... 

Something is very wrong within both Gwynedd Council and BCUHB.

Cyngor Gwynedd Council - Sorry Not Sorry.

The letter of apology from the Chief Executive of Cyngor Gwynedd, Dilwyn Williams, made me think of all the other Mea Culpa's we have received in the past four years.

We have not yet replied to Mr William's letter as we await confirmation that the 'recommendations' of the Ombudsman have been completed. Cyngor Gwynedd have a history of non compliance in this case, with 'recommendations' made by independent investigators and even those of the Ombudsman for Wales.

Gwynedd Council agreed to implement the Ombudsman's latest 'recommendations' within three months. Those three months are now up.

The CEO apologised for the failing to update a child's CIN plan - surely the responsibility for the Director of Gwynedd Social Services, Morwena Edwards. But the apology from the CEO may be more sincere considering it took Mrs Edwards 5 months to officially respond to our Stage 2 complaint - badly. The Ombudsman for Wales 2019 Report calls her decision to then reverse her thinking after the publication of the Ombudsman's 2018 Report 'illogical'.

There has also been an apology from Head of Children and Families, Marian Parry Hughes.

Once again, the sincerity of this apology is in question as Mrs Hughes was the most senior manager at the meeting with the Independent Investigator who reported she felt 'overwhelmed' and 'bullied' after completing her investigation.

Mrs Hughes also played a major part in the case of a Gwynedd social worker in which the social worker raised bullying by her manager, at a recent Employment Tribunal - the case can be found here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5cf61dd7e5274a0771578036/1600022.2017_Mr_S_Parry_v_Gwynedd_Council_-_CORRECTED_JUDGMENT_AND_REASONS.pdf

Copy and past the address into your browser.

This Tribunal makes mention of Sharron Williams Carter -  who was also in attendance at the meeting with the Independent Investigator of our Stage 2 complaint.

Sharron Williams Carter was also the senior officer tasked with carrying out the 'recommendations' from the Independent Investigation way back in 2010 that was highly critical of senior management. The 'recommendations' were not implemented.

Apologies from the CEO included him apologising on behalf of Melvin Panther. The same manager whose emails about us were censored and withheld. More on that here - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2018/09/cyngor-gwynedd-councils-report-into.html

Mr Panther was the manager of the disabled social worker who took Gwynedd  Council to the Employment Tribunal.

We have also received an apology from Senior Operational Manager, Aled Gibbard.

Mr Gibbard has also featured in this blog before - badly handling another complaint. More -
https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2017/05/gwynedd-councils-secure-letterbox-not.html

Mr Gibbard was also present at the meeting in which the Investigator felt 'overwhelmed' and 'bullied'.

Delyth Davies - whose inadequate assessment of a child's needs was the main issue of the Stage 2 complaint was also present at this meeting.

Now the Ombudsman for Wales was given evidence that a social worker had lied to Investigators during the investigation and that the authors of the Directors response letter were aware of this deception.

A draft response letter that had Director, Morwena Edwards, asking the two authors - "What if the Ombudsman sees this..."

Marian Parry Hughes has just authored and presented to Council the Complaints Handling Report. Her Report makes nothing of her Department's annus horribilis. For her it is like nothing happened at all. Not even a nod in the direction of the Ombudsman who refers to the number of inaccurate references to legislation that she as Head of the Children and Families Department had made.

It is the same with the Director's of Social Services Annual Report 2019 - 'move along - nothing to see here'.
So how are County Councillors informed of the systemic failings found within Gwynedd Children and Families Department and their mishandling of complaints, year upon year ?

We have informed various committee members...and they choose to remain silent and do nothing.

What of Dilwyn Morgan, Cabinet member responsible for the Children and Families Department ? He has still not responded to us after being sent a copy of the Ombudsman's Report in June.
 
Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council.

Cyngor #Gwynedd Council's Report Into Their #Data Breach 2018

I emailed Morwena Edwards, Corporate Director of Social Services, on the 19th March, 2018.

"We are also concerned that you have been aware of a Data Breach by your Department for nearly a year and no-one from the Council has been in contact with us. The Investigator has been provided with evidence of the Data Breach and she says so in her Report".

On the 29th March, we attended a meeting with an Information Manager at Gwynedd Council regarding us being given the names of children receiving services from the Council and Youth Justice team and to find out who censored our personal information (SAR) and whether the redactions were legal.
Copies of the names and local school that had been released by the department were presented to the Manager.

On the 22nd May, we had to return for another meeting as the Manager did not answer the questions in her initial Report and also misrepresented the physical and oral evidence we provided. There was also an issue with the Manager failing to respond to our emails but an apology was given for this.

The second meeting was attended by a Janet Roberts, who introduced herself as Corporate Support for the council. Mrs Roberts said very little during the meeting but did take note of the questions we wished to be answered by the person in the Children and Families Department who carried out the redactions to our personal information.

Now these questions were asked as part of our Stage 2 complaint first raised with the council in May, 2017 and was to have been answered by the Independent Investigator. 
Gwynedd council reported that the officer responsible for processing our SAR and for the redactions had left the Council and so was unable to be interviewed.

At this second meeting, Mrs Roberts informed us that the person who processed our SAR had indeed left the council but was then re-employed by the council and was NOW our named person within the Customer Care department dealing with another complaint.

Oh forgot to mention that the Investigation of the Data Breach was upheld. The release of the names of children receiving services should not have happened and the Report, June 2018, is as follows -
                                                                  *****************

I write with reference to your complaint to the Council and in particular part 6 which relates to data and information.

The outcomes from the independent investigators report was that:

The complainants seek an explanation for the censoring of their own information and whether or not it is legal to do so. They seek an explanation from Melvin Panther as to how he thought it in any way appropriate or professional to speak about them in such a derogatory manner to another professional working with the family. In relation to the information containing other children’s details, they wish for this to be dealt with via the Council’s information/data protection security policy and procedure.

I will treat these matters in turn:

1.      Censoring of information and redacted and unredacted emails.

Email dated 5^th of April 2016 10:48

You note that this had been provided to you in redacted and unredacted form and wish to know why it had been redacted.

The department have informed me that it was redacted because it was not thought appropriate to disclose at the time.

In my opinion this part of the email is your personal data since it relates to you and you can be identified by the information. There was no particular reason for it to be withheld and it should have been provided without redaction.

Email dated 27^th of June 2016 at 16:45

I have examined the part of this email which has been redacted.

I am satisfied that this part of the email has been redacted appropriately. Under the right of subject access, an individual is entitled only to their own personal data, and not to information relating to other people.

This part of the email relates to information relating to a third party, namely a social worker. Under section 7(4) of the Act an authority does not have to comply with a request if to do so would mean disclosing information about another individual who can be identified from that information except where the individual has consented or it is reasonable in all the circumstances to comply with the request without that consent.

There was no consent in this case nor was it reasonable to comply without consent.

Email dated 5^th of July 2016 at 13:30

I have examined the part of the email which has been redacted.

As above, this information does not relate to you but to a social worker. It therefore does not constitute your personal data. As such, it was appropriate for the information to be withheld in accordance with the reasoning outlined above.

Email dated 13^th of July 2016 at 10:14

I have examined the part of the email which has been redacted.

I believe that this email should have been provided to you as it relates to you and is therefore your personal data.

2.   An explanation from Mel Panther

As noted in previous correspondence, it is not within my remit to comment on the actions of another member of staff.

3.      Emails containing other children’s details

I have examined the emails you provided me in this respect.

In a series of emails between two members of staff in January 2016 the names of children appear in the subject headings.

For a data breach to occur, the information in question must be personal data i.e. it must relate to an individual and allow them to be identified from the information.

In this case, it is not clear that a surname together with the name of a school would enable identification of an individual. However, the information confirms that the child is a child a need, which is sensitive information in itself.

It should also be noted that the name of this child had been redacted from the main text of an email in one instance and therefore there was a recognition that this was indeed third party personal data.

The name of another child also appears in the subject line of the same series of emails. This time there is a name and surname, which makes identification more likely. Again the information confirms that the child is a child in need, which is sensitive information in itself.

Having further considered the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance on determining what is personal data, which notes that someone can be identified from information we hold or ‘the means that could be used by a sufficiently determined and interested person’, I have concluded that on the balance of probabilities, this was personal data and therefore did constitute a data breach.

Therefore, the names should have been removed from the subject line of the emails before being disclosed to you as part of the subject access request.

At our meeting on the 23^rd of May 2018, you asked some further questions which have been addressed below:

4.         Who made the decision to redact both emails?

In her role as the Information Officer, Angharad Hywel would in cases such as this routinely meet with her line manager at the time, Margaret Kenealy Jones to check the information which was to be shared. If she felt that some details noted within the information should be redacted, these  would be identified and advice would be sought from her line manager. In this specific case, she met with her line manager to read through the information which was to be disclosed. During this meeting they discussed some documents which were deemed to contain information which could be misinterpreted or could impact the working relationship between the family and the Service. The officer received guidance in relation to redacting these documents.

5.         Who asked for them to be redacted?

A decision was made between the Officer and the line manager at the time to redact the sentences in the email dated 5th April 2016 and the email dated 13^th of July 2016.

6.         Did they consult with anybody?

No other officers were consulted.

7.         What were the reasons for the redaction?

Having read the redacted sentences in the emails dated 5 April 2016 and 13^th July 2016, the Officer was of the opinion that these statements were the personal opinion about the family and that disclosing them could undermine the attempts to maintain a working relationship between the Service and the family. At the time of this Subject Access Request, and particularly during the timeframe in which this decision was taken, the Service had responded to a number of complaints and many of these were related to difficulties in the working relationship between the family and Mel Panther. It was imperative at this time, and in fact continues to be the case, that efforts were made to maintain a good working relationship between the Service and the family as the Service was focused on trying to ensure that *child* was provided with an assessment of his needs to ensure the best outcome for him.

Moving on to other points made in your email dated the 8^th of June 2018, I would note that no procedures have been broken in terms of the redactions made. The usual procedure for dealing with a subject access request had been followed, ie, information was collated, advice was sought regarding redaction, redaction was carried out and information that was disclosable was disclosed.

It is noted that a breach did occur, but this was due to an oversight, and was low risk in terms of the amount of personal information disclosed.   

  As I stated during our meeting, the question regarding the legality of the redactions is not one I can answer. The redactions were carried out in good faith for the reasons given above. Redacting information is necessarily a subjective task and does, and indeed, can vary from person to person.

In terms of a data breach, the matter will be dealt with via the usual procedure, which is that a report is prepared for the Council’s SIRO (Senior Information Risk Owner) Group.

I will remind the departments regarding the need to take particular care at all times with future subject access requests.

I am sorry that I am unable to add anything further regarding this matter – if you wish to take the matter further you may contact the ICO, whose details are noted below:

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or ring them on 0303 123 1113.

                                                          ********************

Anyone else spot the contradictions ?
 
More worryingly, the report states it was the two information officers alone who made the decision to redact but goes on to state the "question regarding the legality of the redactions is not one I can answer."

An Official Report, written by an Information Manager, aided by Corporate Support with access to the entire Legal department at Gwynedd council can not answer to the legality of their Officers actions.
Hmm.

The SAR also reveals that one manager within the council would like to blame us for not reporting the Data Breach earlier.

The Data Breach was part of my complaint first raised with the council on the 25th May, 2017.
How did the council respond ?

See post - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.com/2017/05/gwynedd-council-respond-to-my-complaint.html

They were all on holiday.

Gwynedd Council Maladministration 2018.

On the 16th March, 2018, Gwynedd Council's Corporate Director and Head of Social Services, Morwena Edwards, finally responded to our Stage 2 Complaint, nearly 5 months after the completed Report was received by the Council.

The entire process has taken over 10 months to conclude - a process that according to Gwynedd's Statutory Policy should take 28 days.

Our complaint(s) were upheld by the 'Independent' Investigator and her Report - twice sanitised by the Council - still makes for some very interesting reading. But that is for another time.

The Data Breach and censoring of our personal information are currently being investigated as a separate complaint by Gwynedd's Information department. But we have now been told that the Manager is not able to deal with the issue of a senior manager, Melvin Panther, writing disparaging comments about the family to other agencies - so our complaint in this respect is still not concluded.

The official response from the Council is signed off by Morwena Edwards and she attempts to totally whitewash the highly critical Report into her department.

According to the Welsh Government Guidelines on Social Services Complaints, the Council were obliged to offer to meet with us to discuss the report and their response. They have not offered a meeting and as we have yet again been denied the opportunity to discuss the report and their response to it, we wrote in response to the Council.

We pointed out that the Children and Family department attempts to gloss over the systemic failings uncovered by the 'Independent' Investigator and still seek to blame anyone but themselves.

Social Workers and other Council Officers admit that the child's case was allowed 'to drift'.

Our reply to the Corporate Director(s) was that her response is nonsensical and farcical and disregards the failure of Social Workers and the appalling state of record keeping within the Children's department.

During this time, the Ombudsman for Wales has also been investigating Gwynedd Council.

Their Report upholds all our complaints and highlights maladministration and service failure by Gwynedd Social Services going as far back as 2010.

Yet this time Gwynedd Council have held up their hands to the Ombudman's Report and agreed to implement all the recommendations made - including certain officers being retrained in respect of the Council adhering to their Statutory Duties.

The Council would have received the Ombudsman's Report early last week. They have still not contacted us.

Something is so badly wrong within Gwynedd Council.

Cyngor #Gwynedd Council And The Half Term Holiday.

An update to the post of the 9th February - https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/cyngor-gwynedd-council-and-delayed.html  - in relation to the Stage 2 complaint first raised on the 25th May, 2017, on the advice of the Ombudsman for Wales.

Morwena Edwards, Director of Social Services, sent an email at 17.03 possibly to prove that she was not taking her half term holiday early, this year, as I suggested ?

Reading through Gwynedd Council's Statutory Policy it is clear that the Investigation is completed and the Report finalised and with the Ombudsman for Wales even making reference to the Council's 'delayed response' we can only assume that the Director of SS is either misinformed by her complaints officer(s) or she is deliberately misinforming us ?

"I apologise that you have not yet been updated in relation to the progress on your complaint.  As you rightly note, there was a meeting as part of the investigation with the Council officers on the 30^th of January.  Unfortunately, I understand that the Customer Care Officer who made contact with the investigator in relation to timescales for producing the final report and submitting this to the Council, has been away from work with an illness.  Because of this, I have not been provided with the update as expected. 

Following your email, I have asked someone else to contact the Independent investigator to make enquiries and ascertain when the final report is expected by the Council.  Once this reply is received, I will of course provide you with an update.

In your email, you suggest that the Council has had the report for 14 weeks.  I am informed that the Investigator is yet to issue a final report to the Council.  Once this is received, the Council will prepare a formal response to you about your complaint and you will be provided with a copy of the Investigator’s final report."
                                                 *********************

It is now the end of another week - 15 weeks now - since the Council have had the Independent Investigators Report and nearly 9 months since the complaint was raised.

Another week in which Mrs Edwards refuses to answer our questions and, like other council officers involved in this case, blames someone else for the delay.

It is the half term holiday and there will be public employees taking a well earned holiday.
Does that include the Director and ALL the customer care and complaints department dealing with our complaint ?

Forget the update, Morwena and just release the Report. 

Something is so wrong within Gwynedd Council's Social Services.

Cyngor #Gwynedd Council And It's Delayed Response.

Still no sign of the Independent Report into a Stage 2 complaint first raised with Cyngor Gwynedd council in May, last year, on the advice of the Ombudsman for Wales.

Out of frustration we emailed the Corporate Management team - see post from the 17th January - 

https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/so-we-emailed-cyngor-gwynedd-councils.html

Our questions were not answered to any satisfaction but we were told by an Executive Officer on behalf of the Director of Social Services, Morwena Edwards, that we would be receiving an update - 

"Thank you for your email and I apologise that I am unable at this point to answer your questions fully.

I understand that a meeting with the Independent Investigator has been arranged on the 30th of January. Following this meeting the Service will be in a better position to advise you on a timescale for sharing the report.

I understand your frustrations that this is taking longer than expected, however Lowri Williams will provide you with an update following the meeting on  the 30th."

As no update has been forthcoming we sent an email to the Director, Morwena Edwards, on the 6th February -

"Dear Mrs Edwards,

It has been a week since Senior Managers met with the Independent Investigator and we have not received any update as your Executive Officer promised.

So please now answer our very pertinent questions in relation to the stage 2 complaint first raised in May, last year, without delay and release the report immediately.

We remind you that the Council have had the report for 14 (fourteen) weeks now and it is coming up to 9 (nine) months since the complaint was first raised.

We are aware that two months were lost due to the accident befalling the first Investigator so 7 (seven) months in a process that by your own Statutory Policy should take 25 working days".

                                                         *****************

The Director and senior management remain silent.

Perhaps they are all taking the half term holiday early this year ?

Something is so badly wrong within Cyngor Gwynedd Council and its Social Services.

So We Emailed Cyngor #Gwynedd Council's Corporate Management Officers....

With Gwynedd council customer care (!) still refusing to respond to our questions regarding the Stage 2 complaint first raised with them on May 25th, last year, we emailed the Corporate Management Team, yesterday, with our concerns - Chief Executive, Dilwyn Williams, Corporate Directors, Iwan T Jones and Morwena Edwards.

FAO Gwynedd Council Corporate Management Team

As you will be aware we have a current Stage 2 complaint ongoing with Gwynedd Council Children and Families Department, first raised on the 25th of May 2017.

The Independent Investigator presented her completed report to the Council at the end of October.

We were then informed that the Council were seeking clarity from the Investigator and questioning the report.

The Council have been in possession of the completed Independent Investigators report for 11 weeks now.

The whole Stage 2 process is as you know to be completed within 25 days, do you find this acceptable ?

We have found the Counci's handling of this complaint and us as complainants to be obstructive, unhelpful and the Council to be utterly lacking in transparency and it is also obvious that Customer Care do not act independently of the Department as they should, which, we contend, leads to complainants being treated unfairly.

We have asked for information regarding the outcome of the Independent Investigation and also the Council's Complaints procedure.

No answers were given, or information provided.

We asked who within the Council we could contact to discuss our issues, we received no answer to this and worse were wrongly advised by Customer Care that we were free to discuss our complaint with the Ombudsman at any time.

We did indeed contact the Ombudsman to discuss the issues surrounding our complaint and were told -

"In relation to your dissatisfaction with the Council’s handling of your Stage 2 investigation, as I explained in my previous email, this matter does not fall within the scope of my investigation and therefore I am unable to consider it....
...If you wish for this matter to be considered by the Ombudsman, you would need to submit a complaint, by completing the online form on our website.  I am unable to speculate whether submitting a complaint to this office would affect the Council’s current Stage 2 investigation"

In light of the ongoing situation and the bad advice from Customer Care, perhaps you would be so kind as to furnish us with the information we require -

1. Were the six points of complaint upheld by the Independent Investigator or not ?

2. What were the questions presented, by the department, to the Independent Investigator regarding the report submitted to the Council in October ?

3. Who is the Adjudicating Officer in this matter?

4. On what date can we expect the Council to provide us with the report ?

5.Please provide us with a link to Gwynedd Council's Policy and Welsh Government guidelines that supports the Council in withholding the outcome of the Independent Investigator's Report and the Report itself.

6. Please advise us of our rights as complainants in relation to our being supplied with the above information, without delay.

7. We ask that if we were to raise a formal complaint into how the Council and the Customer Care department have been dealing with our formal complaint would this, in any way, interfere with or cause any further delay to our formal complaint first raised with the Council on the 25th May, 2017 ?

We also ask that you view the emails between ourselves and Customer Care, as that will give you further insight into our very pertinent concerns.
                                           ******************************************

Today, we received an email from a Senior Executive Officer on behalf of Morwena Edwards.
It was brief - 3 sentences - thanking me for our email and included the line -

"I can assure you that Gwynedd Council takes all complaints seriously and I will endeavour to respond to the specific questions detailed in your email within 5 working days."

Well.. we are not assured - who would be after being treated so badly for so long ? - and so emailed back with the question we have been asking ever since the Independent report was received by The Council in October, last year.

"Have our 6 points of complaint been upheld by the Independent Investigator ?"

The email was swiftly answered by the council -

"Whilst I understand your frustrations, without having had the opportunity to look into the matter, I am unable today, to answer your question. I will respond to you within 5 working days."

More delay in a process that has taken nearly 8 months now.

Something is so badly wrong within Gwynedd Council.

More -  https://gwyneddsfailingcouncil.blogspot.co.uk/