Misconduct/misuse of NHS email - complaint stonewalled.

keyser666

Devon_Sailor wrote: »

Hello all,

Apologies if this is in the wrong section, but it seemed the best fit..!

Brief background.

Apr 2013 a planning application is submitted by a member of my family that attracts some local opposition. Person A sets up a campaign website against it, and organises an 'action group', which conducts lobbying of local MPs, councillors, members of the public, letter writing to newspapers, etc.

Person A also speaks at a number of group events locally at which point she urges members to launch personal and specific attacks against other business interests of my family member.

She makes a number of written submissions full of lies and personal insults relating to not only the family member initially involved, but myself and my wider family (even though our only involvement is having the same surname!).

Person A attended a local council meeting and threatened to start a campaign to get my wife sacked if she dared to vote on a seperate, similar planning application, despite having a letter from the local council legal department telling her that she was fully entitled to do so.

ALL of this political activity, including her personal smears, lies and underhand threats, were conducted by Person A; Person A works for the NHS, and much of her correspondence, both to her 'followers' and local govt (published online on the council Planning site) eminated from her NHS email account.

I wrote to the Chief Exec of the local NHS Trust (following their complaints procedure) having explained the situation to their complaints initial point of contact, who was amazed ("I am utterly amazed that one of our staff could do something as stupid as this" were his exact words!!). After a LONG delay, CE got in touch, with a one liner.

"We allow staff to use emails for personal use, and therefore no issue to resolve."

Completely different from their fair use policy, published on their own website, which states no personal use allowed at all, so I wrote back asking to see the paragraph/document in question.

Again, a copy and paste, plus a one liner talking about "staff are permitted to use their NHS email for essential personal use, but within reason."

Now, I take "essential personal use" to mean, checking up at home about medical appointments, or not being able to pick up the kids because I am finishing late, or even, at the far ends of 'essentiallness', what the heck are we having for tea tonight.......but NOT organising and maintaining a political lobby group?!

I replied again, asking if the CE was in all seriousness suggesting that political campaigning was "essential personal use", and if he was, whether or not he was therefore endorsing the aims of her lobby group? Would he be so keen to brush off the complaint if Person A was coordinating/campaigning for a mainstream political party? How about the BNP?

Zero reply, weeks later.

Should I try and escalate this further? It seems bizarre that the initial complaint handler was appalled and urged me to make the complaint official. Others that I know, also within the NHS, were equally appalled, and operate under similar guidelines.

I feel that I have been massively fobbed off, and ignored, and the CE is basically a*s covering for his employee.

Sorry thins has ended up as something of an essay....this person has made the alst 18 months a living hell with her lies and hate filled campaign against my family and others. And now she is getting away with it because of some spineless CE who cant be botehred with the hastle of even giving her a warning?!

Thoughts?

Many thanks

D_S.

Bump

Takeaway_Addict

wondered why you had bumped it but nice one on the quote.

dippy3103

Sounds like she has possibly breached fair use policies and has possibly had words of advice. But as an employee she has a right to confidentiality as regards any disciplinary action.

What is it you require if the CEO & how will it resolve your issues?

Devon_Sailor

Hi Dippy,

As alluded to above, I dont actually want to know what disciplinary action is taken, so all the points made about (by other posters) it being none of my business and confidentiality raised earlier dont apply. What I am trying to do is get them to investigate at all.

Their own customer complaints department said there was a valid complaint, going by the same code of conduct that was quoted back to me as 'no case to answer' and he wasnt going to bother to investigate.

I deleted the post because it was going nowhere - the majority of the respondees hadnt actually bothered to read it properly - esp those saying I had 'no right' to make the complaint as it was nothing to do with me....I actually only complained specifically about the bits DIRECTLY relating to myself, adding other aspects as distinctly relevant to highlight the widespread nature of their behaviour.

As this was an NHS employee in a non specific county (therefore could relate to anyone who posts on here!) all I would ask is this.

- Do they think it is right that instead of using her working hours to help deal with sick and vulnerable people (as we are all paying for them to do), this person was running an abusive harrassment campaign?

- Do they think it is right that they decided to use equipment bought and paid for by taxpayers money?

- Do they actually, in all sanity, class such activity as "limited and necessary personal use"?

I would imagine the majority would say no, yet I put a post up and am accused of conducting a vendetta.

Anyhoo, as I say, deleted because the thread was going nowhere and I didnt want to clutter up the forum with stuff.

SuzieSue

Devon_Sailor wrote: »

Not everyone on here likes to leave personal related posts up in perpetuity once they have finished a thread? Maybe you should show a semblance of thought for others?

You can ask the forum team to delete the whole thread if you are worried.

dippy3103

But it depends...

I am permitted to use my work email/internet in my own time. Example

Yesterday I wanted to look for a specific item on tinternet. So I did so in my lunch break & therefore was within the rules. If I had done it mid morning then I would have breached that policy. The same goes for email.


I have to say I would not use my work email for something like that as it would possibly imply that it was in an official capacity. For example my sons school emails "important announcements" to both my home and work email (on yen basis the sooner I know of a strike or other closure the quicker I can do something)

So to some extent I take your point. I also agree it's pertinent as to if the activity was whilst she was supposed to be working or in her lunch break. If in her lunch break then it's plain silly, when clocked it would be disciplinary!


My point is that it's complicated! Though I do agree with the person that commented its a stupid thing to do using a work email

mountainofdebt

Devon_Sailor wrote: »

Hi Dippy,

As alluded to above, I dont actually want to know what disciplinary action is taken, so all the points made about (by other posters) it being none of my business and confidentiality raised earlier dont apply. What I am trying to do is get them to investigate at all.

Their own customer complaints department said there was a valid complaint, going by the same code of conduct that was quoted back to me as 'no case to answer' and he wasnt going to bother to investigate.

I deleted the post because it was going nowhere - the majority of the respondees hadnt actually bothered to read it properly - esp those saying I had 'no right' to make the complaint as it was nothing to do with me....I actually only complained specifically about the bits DIRECTLY relating to myself, adding other aspects as distinctly relevant to highlight the widespread nature of their behaviour.

As this was an NHS employee in a non specific county (therefore could relate to anyone who posts on here!) all I would ask is this.

- Do they think it is right that instead of using her working hours to help deal with sick and vulnerable people (as we are all paying for them to do), this person was running an abusive harrassment campaign?

- Do they think it is right that they decided to use equipment bought and paid for by taxpayers money?

- Do they actually, in all sanity, class such activity as "limited and necessary personal use"?

I would imagine the majority would say no, yet I put a post up and am accused of conducting a vendetta.

Anyhoo, as I say, deleted because the thread was going nowhere and I didnt want to clutter up the forum with stuff.

Well for what's its worth yes I do think that the person concerned was stupid to use their work email address to facilitate this campaign but there again I would think that whether they worked for the NHS or Joe Bloggs Ltd. In both cases they were/are in danger of bringing their employer into disrepute which can lead to gross misconduct charges.

Where you and I differ is that you have made a compliant, it was (on the face of it) dismissed and you are not happy with this - hence the posting on a public forum. That is why it smacked of a vendetta

What has happened behind the scenes and what is the outcome is not your business - if only because that is between the employee and employer. Would you have been happy with being told thanks for telling us and we'll deal with it? Or would you wanted to have known the outcome as well?

Of course the danger in using a work email address is that you may be 'off the clock' when using it - it doesn't necessarily follow that they were doing private stuff in work time

keyser666

Devon_Sailor wrote: »

Wow...what a pointless waste of time that was from you? Why did you bother doing that? As stated, question asked, opinions given - no longer required. Are you just some sort of troll trying to get your post count up?!

Not everyone on here likes to leave personal related posts up in perpetuity once they have finished a thread? Maybe you should show a semblance of thought for others?

As you like digging up old irrelevant posts, I hope you dont mind me returning the favour - especially as you too felt hard done by about submitting a complaint! Im amazed you too werent accused of conducting a "vendetta" simply because you pursued a legitimate grievance......

You seem to miss the point. I didn't dig up and old irrelevant post, that's what you did. I also don't edit any of my posts in order to delete the content after people have spent their time advising and putting effort in to responding. I also have no problems in you quoting any of my posts, I leave them there because if anyone else is in a similar situation then they can gain some info from it. Maybe you should show a semblance of thought for the effort others have put in?

If you dont want personal posts on the internet, dont put them there in the first place.
d
Oh and in response to your post, I think it is none of your business what an employee is doing with company email whereby you are not employed directly or indirectly by the said company. It seems you are the only one with a vendetta here and like playing tit for tat as shown by the post above.

Devon_Sailor

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Where you and I differ is that you have made a compliant, it was (on the face of it) dismissed and you are not happy with this - hence the posting on a public forum. That is why it smacked of a vendetta

I only raised it on here because, in the face of all the evidence, including their own personnel stating that it was a serious breach of their policy that warranted an investigation and complaint, I was given a rude one line brush off, saying that they werent even going to beother to look at the evidence that I had submitted. Asking an opinion on here is far from a vendetta. People post similar conundrums all the time. If I had wanted to make it personal, I would have named, shamed, or given far more clues to who, where, when and what than I had done.

mountainofdebt wrote: »

What has happened behind the scenes and what is the outcome is not your business - if only because that is between the employee and employer. Would you have been happy with being told thanks for telling us and we'll deal with it? Or would you wanted to have known the outcome as well?

As I have now stated in pretty much every post, if they had just said "thanks, we will investigate it and get back to you"...fine. It was the point blank - "nothing to see here, sod off and leave us alone" which irked me. And again, NO, I didnt want chapter and verse as to what discipline or other action they would decide to take....that is, as you rightly point out, 100% confidential.

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Of course the danger in using a work email address is that you may be 'off the clock' when using it - it doesn't necessarily follow that they were doing private stuff in work time

I appreciate that point, but the volume of correspondence written, during working hours, over the course of multiple days and multiple weeks, rules it out.

Anyhow, like I said, this thread was just going around in circles so I tried to kill it before it shuffled off miserably by itself

Devon_Sailor

keyser666 wrote: »

You seem to miss the point. I didn't dig up and old irrelevant post, that's what you did. I also don't edit any of my posts in order to delete the content after people have spent their time advising and putting effort in to responding. I also have no problems in you quoting any of my posts, I leave them there because if anyone else is in a similar situation then they can gain some info from it. Maybe you should show a semblance of thought for the effort others have put in?.

- The set of circumstance that I posted were unique, so unlikely to be used for 'future reference'. Especially as most of the "efforts of other" was to misread, or misinterpret what I had written in the first place.

- Many people on here delete posts that are no longer relevant or have had their question answered, or remove them when all they inspire is responses that begin to descend into tit for tat and sniping, which is just a complete waste of bandwidth. I assume you have gone and done the same to their posts?

keyser666 wrote: »

Oh and in response to your post, I think it is none of your business what an employee is doing with company email whereby you are not employed directly or indirectly by the said company. It seems you are the only one with a vendetta here and like playing tit for tat as shown by the post above.

In this instance, what you think is beside the point. If I wrote to you, in an abusive form, from my work addres, having signed a statement of usage policy, I would be in the wrong. You would be fully entitled to (quite rightly) complain about me. That is not a vendetta. That is how the real world works. That is why companies actually go to the trouble of making employees sign the darned things in the first place - to cover themselves in case someone does something that reflects badly on said company/organisation.