Background on UK Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Dame Julie Mellor (DBE)

Ombudsman Julie took up the post of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) in January 2012. The role of the Ombudsman service is to investigate complaints that individuals have been treated unfairly or have received poor service from government departments and other public organisations and the NHS in England. The Ombudsman provides an independent, high quality complaint handling service that makes the final decisions on the complaints about these public services for individuals, drives improvement in public services, informs public policy and learns from complaints to help public services get better. The discussion will be attended by among others MEC of Health in Gauteng Mr Anthony Papo, Deputy Public Protector Adv. Kevin Malunga, Military Ombudsman Lieutenant-General Themba Mthanzima and Chairperson of the South African Medical Association Dr Mzukisi Grootboom.

Prior to this role Dame Julie was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers from where she led their health consulting practice in London. She joined PWC in 2005 following a successful seven years as a Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). Prior to her appointment, she worked in HR and has 20 years experience in both public and private sector.