Investigation reports

We investigated a man’s concerns about the death of his elderly mother. 

We found that while she suffered from a number of medical conditions which could have caused her death at any time, the immediate cause was Covid-19.

A woman complained about how long it took the Northern Health Trust to provide her late son with a routine test for heart disease, and about its subsequent failure to monitor his condition.

A Trust’s failure to accurately report on a patient’s CT scan meant she and her family could not prepare for her end-of-life care.

Delays by the Northern Trust in replying to a woman’s telephone calls added to her anxiety about her mother’s care.  We recommended that the Trust apologise to the woman and make improvements to its complaint handling procedures.

A woman complained about her father’s treatment in hospital during the last weeks of his life. We found he was looked after properly, but were critical that consultants did not respond to a request from the woman to discuss his care plan.

We found no failings by the Antrim Area Hospital in the care and treatment of a patient with severe heart valve disease.

We upheld a number of complaints against the Northern Health Trust, including that hospital staff did not give an elderly patient enough fluids, nor appropriately monitor her over a 24-hour period.

We criticised the way in which the Northern Trust carried out a health check to a patient three weeks before her death.  We found the outcome for the patient may have been different if the treatment and subsequent record keeping had met relevant standards.