Investigation reports

The Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has apologised to the family of a man for a number of failures while he was in hospital for lung cancer. However, we welcomed the learning and commitment to service improvement identified by the Trust following our investigation into the complaint.

We partly upheld a complaint from a woman who was unhappy about her hospital treatment during the later stages of her pregnancy.

We investigated a woman’s complaint that her father did not receive appropriate care in the Emergency Department of the Mater Hospital, Belfast.  We found there were failures in his treatment, but that they did not ultimately lead to a deterioration in his health.

The wife of a cancer patient complained about his care in Belfast City Hospital. We found that overall the patient’s pain was appropriately assessed and managed. However, we also concluded that he failed to get radiotherapy when he needed it because of a delay in receiving a biopsy.

Our investigation found that the care and treatment of a patient in the Royal Victoria Hospital was reasonable and appropriate.  However, we also found that she should have been told what symptoms to look out for in case she needed to return to the Emergency Department or visit her GP.

Errors by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust meant that a cancer patient’s end of life symptoms were left uncontrolled, and that opportunities for advanced care planning were missed.  It also found that her end of life wishes were not taken into account.

Investigation finds that it took more than 6 months for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust to respond to a patient’s complaint.

The Chief Executives of three health trusts have apologised after an error in recording a patient’s date of birth led to him being confused with another patient.