Even the Government Ombudsman's own Market Research is Broken

As a coda to my complaint to the Public Health Service Ombudsman I thought I'd give my feedback to Opinion Research Services who are tasked with collecting the views of those who have used the PHSO service. Not long after I made the complaint I started receiving phone calls from Opinion Research Services asking me to give feedback on the "quality of the service" I had received from the PHSO. As I had to keep repeating to the callers, it was impossible for me to answer that because my complaint had not reached the end of the process and I had not received anything back from the PHSO that I could use to form a opinion of it. After about three or four calls I heard nothing more. That was a year before the complaint was resolved. Now in 2025 I am ready to give my feedback on the service and so today I rang the PHSO explaining the above and asking to be put through to the people who had called me. This is how that conversation went :

Me "Hi, before my complaint was even looked at I was being rung repeatedly by a market research company asking me how I felt about the way my complaint had been dealt with and I kept telling them that I hadn't had it looked at yet but I now would like to give them my opinion of the service. How would I do that ?"

PHSO "You can't . We don't have that facility. They just pick cases out at random of people they have considered. It's not likely that they will ring you again now. They usually seem to ring people in a gap between any action on the account but we don't have any way of putting you through to our market research team I'm afraid as they are not part of our organisation"

I rang Opinion Research Services and expressed my concern. They confirmed the process outlined by the PHSO was in accordance with the clients wishes but that there were concerns that people were being rung "too early in the process". I was informed that my concerns would be raised and that someone might call me back for my opinion....but that wasn't guaranteed.

So there you have it. Perish the thought they ask the opinion of anyone who has actually used the service right through to the end.

And my review ? Well read the piece in Private Eye and have a guess!