Investigation reports

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.

We found that the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust did not provide a patient with a multi-disciplinary review prior to her discharge from the Royal Victoria Hospital.

We found that the Trust failed to follow any multidisciplinary assessments when it assessed a patient for  Continuing Healthcare.

We recommended that the Northern Health Trust apologise to a complainant after our investigation found failings in the care and treatment of her baby son and its handling of a Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) investigation.

Our investigation into a complaint about the care and treatment of a cancer patient has led to an apology to the complainant and a review of the issue of pain management on two wards in the Mater and Royal Victoria hospitals.