Investigation reports

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.

We concluded that the investigation by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust followed all relevant guidelines, but asked it to remind staff of the importance of routinely consulting the GPs of vulnerable adults when carrying out future investigations.

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pain relief injections, but asked it to reflect on the best way to manage the issues around patients having treatments withdrawn that, to them, have resulted in benefits.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