Church and State blog: NHS England Complaint Ref: C-298326 PW: Will a complaints officer progress or dismiss Declan's complaint straight off the bat? (WITH UPDATE 25/1/2018)

Thursday, January 18, 2018

NHS England Complaint Ref: C-298326 PW: Will a complaints officer progress or dismiss Declan's complaint straight off the bat? (WITH UPDATE 25/1/2018)

HM Revenue and Customs: Not a matter of serious misconduct?

On 15 September 2017 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) forwarded to the Professional Standards Department of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) my complaint of serious misconduct against HMRC staff. By letter dated 21 September 2017, HMRC Internal Governance dismissed the complaint on the basis that further consideration was unnecessary.

On 12 August 2017 I complained to the IPCC that HMRC Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment had (1) updated my address on 11 July 2017 without my permission (and in the full knowledge of the potential detrimental effect of this on my living situation, given that my address has not changed since May 2014), and (2) had then subsequently closed my Self Assessment account based upon fabricated hearsay evidence which no independent judiciary would accept.

Last week I mentioned that Declan and I still have to protect the roof over our heads from misconduct by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) staff; see my blog post of 13 January, Peabody rent statement: Are we under attack by Newham Council? (WITH UPDATE 15/1/2018). We now wonder if Declan's complaint last Monday to National Health Service (NHS) England is on track to be treated as abominably as the complaint of mine that the Independent Police Complaints Commission forwarded to the Professional Standards Department of HMRC last September. Last Sunday Declan found himself running to Plaistow station, a ten minute walk away from where we live. NHS 111 - a helpline service for urgent medical concerns - had given him 1 1/4 hours to make it across North London for an emergency dental appointment at 12.40pm. When he got there, just in time, he was told by the receptionist that he shouldn't have had to rush at all - they were open until 10pm and had appointment slots available! It didn't stop there. The dentist said he had accelerated the death of a nerve in one of Declan's teeth but sent him on his way without a prescription for antibiotics; and the result was that at the time of Declan's complaint the next day the gum swelling was sensitive enough to prevent his teeth from touching. This morning Declan received an email from NHS England Complaints Team. It states: "Please could you contact me on the number below or provide me with a contact number in order to discuss your complaint further as I require additional information in order to be able to progress with your complaint." He replied as follows:

For the attention of Simon Stevens, CEO, NHS England.

Dear Ms Wren,

Thank you for your email.

My phone number is 0788 043 7681; however, in light of the double nature of my complaint, I would prefer to confine the matter to writing in order to try to avoid any misunderstandings.

If this does not suit you, please could you speak the additional information you require into my voicemail and I will get back to you with as unambiguous and comprehensive a response as I can muster to enable you to progress my complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey

This was Declan's original complaint:

For the attention of Simon Stevens, CEO, NHS England

Complaints Team
National Health Service England

Address removed for email

15 January 2018

Dear NHS England,

Yesterday I received emergency dental care, having contacted NHS 111 helpline service for urgent medical concerns.

Firstly, NHS 111 told me on a fourth phone call that the last appointment available to me in London on a Sunday was at 12.40pm. This gave me less than 1 1/4 hours to make my way across North London by tube from Plaistow to Finchley Central. When I arrived at the dental practice at breakneck speed at 12.42pm, I was informed by the receptionist that she couldn't understand why I was put through such an ordeal because the practice did not close until 10pm and there were later appointments available.

Secondly, I had a nerve removed from a tooth but I wasn't given antibiotics and today I have to contend with gum swelling that has hardly reduced at all. I have made an appointment to see my dentist on 18 January. In the meantime, all I can do to ease the pain of an inflamed gum is continue to take painkillers and rinse my mouth with a salt water solution.

Please could you advise how I should proceed with this complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

"Let me recommend an important web site - churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

UPDATE 22 January (6.16pm): On 19 January Declan clarified that (1) he is unhappy with the ordeal he was put through by NHS 111 service because there were later appointment slots, and (2) that his specific complaint against the dental practice is that he wasn't given a prescription for antibiotics. This afternoon the complaints officer confirmed that she has forwarded a copy of his complaint to the relevant persons for investigation. On 16 January Declan received this email from NHS England Chair and Chief Executive's Office:

Dear Mr Heavey,

Thank you for your email to Simon Stevens Chief Executive.

Please be assured your complaint is being reviewed and a member of the complaints team will be in touch shortly to discuss next steps.

Kind Regards

Linsey Watson
Chair and Chief Executive’s Office
NHS England

UPDATE 25 January (6.05pm): This morning our dentist provided Declan with a prescription for the antibiotic amoxicillin. It's used to treat bacterial infections such as dental abscesses. In theory he has been referred to a clinic for the extraction of the tooth. The problem this evening is that the dentist says that they have made the referral, but the clinic has subsequently said they are up-to-date with their referrals and Declan is not on their system. So Declan has written to his NHS England complaints officer with all of this information, and once again copied Simon Stevens into the email. He concluded the email: "I have no idea what's next."

Re: Discriminatory surveillance

Paragraph 12 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

12. It is important to underscore that the discriminatory surveillance suffered by the Applicant and his wife is not an isolated event. Rather, it is emblematic of a larger pattern of surveillance by law enforcement officials in the UK that has been well-documented by international and domestic human rights bodies. For example, GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) specialises in the "4 D's": deny, disrupt, degrade, deceive. It has been branded by the press as the spy agency's "deception unit". Though its existence was secret until 2014, JTRIG has developed a distinctive profile in the public understanding, after documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the unit had engaged in "dirty tricks" like deploying sexual "honey traps" designed to discredit targets, launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down Internet chat rooms, pushing veiled propaganda onto social networks and generally warping discourse online. Previous reporting on GCHQ established its focus on what it regards as political radicalism. Beyond JTRIG's targeting of Anonymous, other parts of GCHQ targeted political activists and groups deemed to be "radical", even monitoring human rights NGOs. The President of the London-based Privacy International, Simon Davies, asks: "If spying on human rights NGOs isn't off limits for GCHQ, then what is?"

From My Picks:

27 October 2017: Home Department: Complaint to the Home Secretary against the Independent Police Complaints Commission. My appeal against the HM Revenue and Customs investigation of serious misconduct is simply being ignored (WITH UPDATE 28/10/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Thursday, January 18, 2018

NHS England Complaint Ref: C-298326 PW: Will a complaints officer progress or dismiss Declan's complaint straight off the bat? (WITH UPDATE 25/1/2018)

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