Investigation reports

A patient complained that if a cyst had been diagnosed earlier she could have avoided a painful procedure to have it drained.     

We asked the Northern Health Trust to apologise to a man after we found it failed to properly monitor a growth on his lungs and to offer him appropriate non-surgical treatment.

A woman complained about the treatment her daughter received when she attended the Emergency Department of Altnagelvin Hospital.  We found that the plan to conduct an ECG and observe the patient was reasonable, but asked the Trust to apologise for the nursing behaviours and attitudes she encountered in the hospital.

The family of a woman who died from lung cancer said that her GP Practice left her without guidance or support following her discharge from hospital. We partially upheld the complaint.

A woman complained that her late brother was not given the best possible chance to recover following gall bladder surgery. We upheld parts of the complaint, and were critical of the serious adverse incident report prepared by the Northern Trust.

We found that the Belfast Trust did not properly assess a man’s healthcare needs before his admission to a nursing home. 

We asked it to apologise to the complainant and to review all applications for continuing healthcare from the last three years.  

We made recommendations for service improvement after we found failings in the way the Belfast Trust investigated the theft of a care home resident’s wedding ring.

A parent who acted as a carer for her son with special needs complained that a six-month delay in her family being allocated a social worker impacted her financially and mentally.

We upheld the complaint but found no evidence of bias against the parent by the Trust.