South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust

4. Mrs A complains about aspects of care the Trust provided her father between April and May 2025. She says the Trust lost her father’s right hearing aid and refused to accept responsibility for it.

5. Mrs A says the Trust’s actions led to her father experiencing distress and a reduced ability to communicate. She also says the Mr C’s family was financially impacted by the cost of replacing the hearing aid.

6. By bringing her complaint to us, Mrs A wants the Trust to pay the cost of replacing the hearing aid and make service improvements in safeguarding patient’s property.

7. Mr C is a 75-year-old male with advanced dementia, is bedbound and dependent on hearing aids for communication. He is also subject to a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) order. The DoLS are legal protections designed to ensure that individuals who lack the capacity to consent to their care arrangements are not deprived of their liberty without proper assessment and authorization.

8. Inpatient admission notes show at 5.47pm on 30 April 2025 when the Trust admitted Mr C to Ward P he had both hearing aids, his charger and the pot for his hearing aid. The Trust noted Mr C had hearing aids on the handover notes and behind Mr C’s bed board.

9. The nurse also recorded Mr C could not sign to say he takes full responsibility for his property as he did not have capacity.

10. On 6 May 2025 while visiting Mr C, his family discovered his right-ear hearing aid was missing.

11. On 15 May 2025, his daughter, Mrs A, complained to PALS via email requesting the Trust take responsibility for the loss and pay for the replacement.

12. On 16 May 2025, PALS responded stating it can ask the ward to reimburse the family once it replaces the hearing aid and provides the receipt.

13. On 16 May 2025, the family got a quotation of £1742 for the replacement of the missing hearing aid.

14. On 16 May 2025, Mrs A forwarded the quotation to PALS requesting the Trust provide a written confirmation it will reimburse the cost of replacement and explain the process by which it will arrange the reimbursement.

15. On 16 May 2025, PALS responded to Mrs A explaining it had received a response from the Ward Manager. In the response, the Ward Manager apologised for the missing hearing aid. She also stated the family needed to get a company to visit the ward to see the moulds and take the fittings for the hospital to get Mr C a replacement hearing aid through the NHS.

16. On the same day, Mrs A responded to PALS asking how she could escalate the issue to get authorisation for reimbursement of the replacement cost.

17. On 19 May 2025, PALS responded to Mrs A providing the patient experience team email contact for escalation.

18. On 19 May 2025, Mrs A escalated the complaint to the patient experience team.

19. On 27 May 2025, the Trust responded to Mrs A. It apologised for the missing hearing aid and explained it is unable to accept responsibility for patient’s property unless it has been handed in for safekeeping. It also stated it is unable to offer reimbursement for the cost of a replacement hearing aid and confirmed Mr C is entitled to NHS funded hearing aids.

23. We have carefully considered Mrs A complaint about the Trust losing her father, Mr C’s hearing aid. We are very sorry to hear Mr C had a reduced ability to communicate due to the loss.

24. Regulation 13 of the HSCA 2008 states providers must safeguard patients from abuse and improper treatment, this includes theft, misuse or misappropriation of money of property belonging to a service user.

25. Our nursing adviser explained the Trust had a duty of care to list Mr C’s valuables and ensure they remained safe and in his possession as he lacked the capacity to do so due to his dementia.

26. Though the Trust stated in its response it cannot accept responsibility for a patient’s property unless it has been handed over for safekeeping, this would not have been appropriate in Mr C’s case. Mr C relied on his hearing aid to communicate and needed to have it with him, and the records show he did not have the capacity to take full responsibility for looking after it

27. Section 1.1.2 of the Patient experience guidance state healthcare professionals should ensure factors such as physical or learning disabilities, sight, speech or hearing problems and difficulties with reading, understanding or speaking English are addressed so the patient is able to participate as fully as possible in consultations and care.

28. Our nursing adviser explained by failing to safeguard Mr C’s hearing aids, the Trust also failed to ensure he was able to communicate his needs effectively.

29. The records show the Trust was aware Mr C used hearing aids; however, there is no evidence staff regularly checked or documented their placement, particularly given Mr C lacked the capacity to do this himself.

30. We identified indications of failings in the way the Trust handled Mr C’s hearing aids. It did not act in line with guidance in ensuring Mr C hearing aids were safeguarded and ensuring he could effectively communicate.

31. By bringing her complaint to us, Mrs A wanted the Trust reimburse the cost of replacing Mr C’s hearing aid and for the Trust to make service improvements in how it safeguards patient’s property.

32. We contacted the Trust informing them of the indications of failings we found and asked if it would be willing to resolve the complaint.

33. The Trust agreed to reimburse the cost of the hearing aids at £1742 to Mrs A. It said following Mrs A’s original complaint it introduced a checklist for both hearing aids and dentures. It also said it has shared learning across all wards about taking responsibility for patients’ belongings when the patient lacks capacity to do so.

34. We consider the Trust’s agreement to reimburse Mrs A is in line with our principles of remedy, which states organisations should return the complainant to the position they would have been in had the issue not occurred.

35. We are pleased to see the Trust also identified learning from Mrs A’s complaint and have taken steps to improve its service to reduce the likelihood of this issue reoccurring. These are in line with the outcomes Mrs A was seeking when she brought the complaint to us. We consider the Trust have done enough to resolve Mrs A’s complaint. For this reason, we will not be taking any further action.

36. We thank Mrs A for bringing her complaint to us. We are pleased to see the Trust have learnt from her feedback and see she has influenced positive change within the Trust. t happened, so future patients would not have such experience.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs A’s complaint about South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust’s (the Trust) actions towards her father, Mr C.

2. We are sorry to hear of the communication difficulties Mr C experienced when his hearing aid was lost during his inpatient stay.

3. Following our request, the Trust have agreed to reimburse the cost of the hearing aids. We are satisfied this is sufficient to resolve Mrs A’s complaint. We will explain this in more detail below.