Investigation Reports

The sister of a man with Downs Syndrome has received an apology from the Belfast Trust following our investigation into his treatment in Belfast City Hospital.

We concluded that a dental practice’s refusal to remove a patient’s tooth when she requested it was not a failure, but criticised the practice for the quality of some its dental records.

A woman complained about the treatment her late mother received in hospital.  We found a number of failures by the South Eastern Health Trust, including that the patient did not receive the right medication following a stroke.

We found that although a cancer patient’s treatment plan was in line with relevant standards, the Altnagelvin Hospital failed to keep proper records relating to her care, including losing a number of key medical documents.  We also asked it to apologise to the patient’s daughter over the way it responded to queries about her mother’s care.

We found that a GP practice gave a complainant the appropriate medication and took other measures to help ease her back pain.

We concluded that a dental practice did not follow the correct procedures when removing a patient from its list.  We also found that its records regarding the patient’s complaint were prepared several months after the alleged incidents occurred.

A man claimed that his son should have been entitled to priority dental treatment during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.  We did not uphold the complaint, finding that the treatment was not allowed within the restrictions at the time.

We found that the Belfast Trust stopped a couple’s adoption application without clearly telling them why.  We asked the Trust to apologise, to let the couple make the application again, and to carry out an audit of previous adoption applications to see if others had been affected in the same way.

We established that it was appropriate for a dental practice to refer a patient to another practice for sedation, but we asked it to apologise to her for causing a misunderstanding.

A woman complained that a nurse asked her inappropriate questions about her sexual health during a procedure to remove a birth control implant.  We found that the Belfast Trust took the correct course of action and that the questions it asked were reasonable.