Failure of Advocacy Service
In July 2016 my brother was provided with an advocate who I initially believed would assist and challenge the recurring inadequate care and support provided to my brother. After I became suspicious and investigated, I discovered that the provided advocate was negligent in performing his duty to my brother. I provide this, not least to prove the validity of my contention that there are serious gaps in the quality and standard of care provided to my brother and that the advocate did not perform his duty or conduct investigation with due diligence.
Below is the introductory letter I received from the provided advocate.
Onside-Advocacy-Letter-22-07-2016-1
I was requested to provide, a list of bullet points which were to be addressed and resolved at a meeting in September 2016.
Below is the list I provided for the meeting I attended with the social worker, advocate, care home manager and regional manager of The Priory Group.
After the meeting of September 2016 promises were broken, including missing a Birthday celebration due to the lack of provision by the care home of transport for my brother; from experience, a common excuse made for the convenience of the provider.
Some days later, I investigated new information and discovered the provided advocate for my brother had been negligent and did not review relevant care records, relying on inaccurate information provided by the care home manager.
After finding the negligence of the advocate, I wrote to the CEO of Onside-advocacy.org.uk who replied via email on 2nd November 2016 stating”Our procedure requires that in the first instance you need to send a letter detailing your complaint to me as the Chief Executive of Onside. If you are then not satisfied with the outcome of this stage then it is at that point that you would have the option to ask the Chair of Trustees to consider the complaint.”
Below is my letter to KH The CEO of Onside-advocacy.org.uk
Advocacy-Complaint
Below is the response from KH CEO of onside-advocacy.org.uk
Letter-from-Onside-Advocacy-CEO-28-11-2016
Below is my emailed response to Ms KH the CEO of onside-advocacy.org.uk
reply-to-KH1-09-12-2016_Redacted
In response I received the following email from Ms KH. You will note the CEO KH requested that I send any communication to her.
KH-email-re-Trustees
Shortly after receiving the above email Ms KH permanently, and in my opinion hypocritically and unprofessionally blocked my email address. I believe due to her dislike of my findings and my questioning if similar had happened in the past.
I sent an email to KH to ask why she had blocked my email address and received the response below
blocked-by-onside-advocacy-CEO
Next, I sent an email to info@onside-advocacy.og.uk (below) requesting to know who the newly appointed advocate for my brother would be. You will not my email address was permanently blocked.
blocked-by-onside-advocacy-CEO1
I also emailed Ms Susan Watterson, as was suggested by the board of trustees (below) requesting to know who my brother’s newly assigned advocate was, only to discover that the address was also permanently blocked.
blocked-by-onside-advocacy-CEO2
I informed Roger Aldridge the chair of board of trustees that my email address was blocked from contacting the onside-advocacy.org.uk service, as below
RA-Trustee-new-advocate
As a side note I later discovered RA left the Police Force due to sexual harrassment of a colleague and breaches of the forces code of conduct
I believe I may not be the first or only person to discover the negligence of an advocate, or the first or only person to have their email blocked by the CEO of onside-advocacy.org.uk when a serious concern is raised for a vulnerable person.
After meeting with the chief of the board of trustees an to the date of publishing this, being 11th February 2017, nobody from onside-advocacy.org.uk has contacted me via email, letter or phone regarding my brother’s newly appointed advocate, even though I’m documented as a person that must be consulted in matters of my brother’s care.