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pain relief injections, but asked it to reflect on the best way to manage the issues around patients having treatments withdrawn that, to them, have resulted in benefits.

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 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 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 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.

We upheld parts of a complaint about the management of the patient's pain relief, the hospital's communication with her family, the supply of her medication, and the decision to discharge her.

We found that although a patient’s CT scan was interpreted incorrectly by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, it is likely that a correct reading would still have not prevented a brain haemorrhage he suffered four weeks later.