Investigation reports

We found that the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust acted appropriately when stopping a patient's pain relief injections, but asked it to reflect on the best way to manage the issues around patients having treatments withdrawn that, to them, have resulted in benefits.

Our investigation into a complaint about the Southern Health and Social Care Trust found that it did not consider all of the available information when making a child’s autism diagnosis.  We asked it to apologise to the child and her mother after appropriate intervention and support only became available following a correct diagnosis over two years later.

The Belfast Health & Social Care Trust is setting up a process to tell GPs when it has downgraded their referrals after we asked it to apologise to a patient who had complained about a delay in treatment.

We've reminded the Cedar Foundation about its record keeping and complaint handling responsibilities after we investigated a man’s complaint about his exclusion from its Social Inclusion Service.

We found that the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust dealt with a complainant’s concerns fairly, but were critical of the time it took to address them.

Our investigation found that the Southern Health and Social Care Trust communicated appropriately with a patient’s nursing home, but that it failed to organise a timely planning meeting prior to her discharge from hospital.

We have asked the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, in consultation with the other Trusts and health and social care organisations, to agree a uniform approach for assessing all future applications for Continuing Healthcare in Northern Ireland.

We recommended that the Northern Health & Social Care Trust, either individually or collectively with others, put in place the necessary arrangements for it to appropriately assess all future requests for Continuing Healthcare.

We investigated claims from a family that the Southern Health and Social Care Trust failed to carry out a Continuing Healthcare assessment for their father.  We upheld the complaint and concluded that the failings caused the family frustration and distress over a prolonged period.

We found that failures in the care and treatment of a patient by a GP Practice had no impact on the prognosis or outcome, but had they not occurred it may have been possible for the patient to have received an earlier diagnosis.