Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mr Q complains that from January 2024, the Trust repeatedly cancelled his urology appointments. He also complains that the Trust cancelled his November 2024 surgery while he was in hospital and just referred him back to his GP. He thinks this was because it had not planned it properly. He does not think it took a person-centred approach to his care.

4. Mr Q says the Trust delayed him getting his prostate surgery and he experienced pain and discomfort, which affected his quality of life, for longer than he should have. He is upset and frustrated because of how the Trust treated him.

5. Mr Q says he would like the Trust to acknowledge what it got wrong and give him a financial remedy for this. He would like it to make service improvements to stop it making the same mistakes again.

6. Mr Q is in his early 60s. In December 2023 he had diagnosed urinary problems related to his prostate and type-2 diabetes. His GP had referred him to the Trust for his urinary problems in spring 2023. The Trust cancelled an appointment for him at its urology clinic in December 2023, deferring this to March 2024.

7. The Trust then gave him an appointment to see a urology consultant in February 2024, but it cancelled this and his appointment in March. Mr Q complained. The Trust rearranged his appointment and the urology consultant saw him in early March 2024. The Trust gave him various tests, including an MRI. The urology consultant saw him again in June 2024 and suggested he have a transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) operation to help his urinary problems. This is an operation to reduce the size of the prostate and help with urine flow.

8. The Trust offered him an operation in August. Mr Q asked for this to be rescheduled as he had already told the Trust he was not available that month. He had blood tests in September and contacted the Trust to ask when it would do his operation. He complained about further delays to the Trust in October.

9. The Trust organised an operation for him in November 2024. It cancelled this when he was in hospital awaiting the operation. It said this was because he had not been taking his diabetic medicine and this could make the operation unsafe.

10. The urology consultant reviewed Mr Q in a telephone consultation in late December. This had been rearranged from an earlier date that month. Mr Q complained again to the Trust. The urology consultant organised another blood test for him and another face-to-face appointment, which he had in January 2025 with a different urology consultant. It planned a GP review of his diabetic control.

11. The Trust sent Mr Q a final response to his complaints in April 2025. He remained unsatisfied and complained to us. The urology consultant saw him again in late May 2025 and he had the TURP the next day as an inpatient.

12. The Trust scheduled him a telephone appointment with the urology consultant in June. This was deferred to September.

13. In August the Trust cancelled his scheduled September 2025 appointment with the urology consultant and rescheduled it to June 2026.

The Trust’s decision not to operate on Mr Q in November 2024

17. Mr Q says the Trust should have operated on him more quickly than it did. He says the Trust did not have a proper care plan for this operation. He says no one seemed to know anything about his care when he arrived. He says the Trust then cancelled it for no good reason and wrongly referred him back to his GP. Mr Q thinks the Trust was very disorganised and his inpatient experience was unplanned.

18. The Trust said his surgery was not urgent and it cancelled his operation because he was not taking his diabetic medication so it was not safe to operate on him. It says it did not know this before he came into the hospital for the operation. It says it needed to assess his condition when he had been taking his medication to see if he actually needed the operation and when would then be best for him.

19. The relevant standard here is NG45. This says people who have diabetes and have been referred for an operation must have HbA1c testing. This is a blood test to check blood sugar levels and whether they show it is safe to operate.

20. We asked our adviser about this. We can see from the records the Trust did an HbA1c test for Mr Q before his planned surgery. Our adviser said this showed Mr Q’s blood sugar levels were higher than the safe recommended levels for elective surgery. They said the Trust was right not to operate under those circumstances. We have found no indication the Trust got something wrong here.

21. We can see from the records the ward was not aware Mr Q was arriving the night before his operation. The Trust acknowledged the ward should have known, as the information was on the relevant system.

22. We understand this was upsetting and worrying for Mr Q. We have not seen evidence this had any impact on the decision not to operate on him.

23. The NHS Complaint Standards says NHS organisations should give open and honest responses to complaints. They should acknowledge where they make mistakes and reflect the impact those had. They should apologise and take action to put things right, including learning from complaints. We can see the Trust has acknowledged what it got wrong, apologised for the impact on Mr Q and has shown it has learned from this. We can see it investigated this complaint, identified what it got wrong and made sure the relevant people knew so this would not happen again. This is what we would expect it to do. We do not think it needs to do anything further to put this right.

24. We can also see the Trust referred Mr Q back to his GP. This was to help make sure his blood sugar levels were at a level where it could safely reschedule his operation. ‘Good medical practice’ says organisations should ensure continuity of care. They should also make sure a patient gets the most appropriate care for their current needs.

25. We have not seen indications the Trust got something wrong when it decided not to operate on Mr Q and referred him back to his GP. The GP would be best placed to monitor Mr Q’s blood sugar levels on a regular basis and refer him back to the Trust when he was safe to have the operation. The Trust’s actions appear to be in line with ‘Good medical practice’. We have not seen indications the Trust got something wrong here.

Waiting times

26. Mr Q says delays caused by the Trust regularly rescheduling his appointments had a negative effect on his ongoing health during this time and reduced his opportunity to have the best results from the operation. The Trust says delays to his appointments were because of staff shortages.

27. NHS ‘Referral to treatment’ says the waiting time for non-urgent referrals should be 18 weeks. There are some exceptions to this, such as if delaying starting treatment is in someone’s best clinical interests or if it is clinically appropriate for their condition to be monitored without clinical intervention. Mr Q’s referral from his GP was for a non-urgent condition.

28. We can see from the records there was some back and forth in spring 2024, with the Trust cancelling and rearranging Mr Q’s appointments. We can understand why he found this frustrating and confusing. The Trust saw him in March 2024 and arranged for him to see its urology consultant in June. The Trust suggested he have a TURP.

29. It initially scheduled this for August, although Mr Q had told it he was not available then. It rearranged his operation for November 2024.

30. We can also see from the records Mr Q raised concerns about the operation, as is his right. The Trust arranged a face-to-face meeting about this, which added a little more time to the date when his surgery took place.

31. When we look at the records, we can see the Trust cancelled and rescheduled a number of Mr Q’s appointments before his surgery. We have not seen evidence which indicates the Trust did this because it had made mistakes. We can also see the Trust has apologised for the delays this led to.

32. We appreciate why this was and remains upsetting for Mr Q. We can see he was in pain while he was waiting for his operation and this was very unpleasant for him. As we set out above, we cannot say that waiting meant operation or recovery was worse than it would have been. We are aware the cancellation of his operation in November 2024 was the most important issue for Mr Q. So we can do nothing more to achieve what he wants.

33. We would like to thank Mr Q for bringing this to us. We can see this was a frustrating and worrying time for him, especially as he continues to be a patient at the Trust. We wish him well for the future.

1. We have carefully considered Mr Q’s complaint about the Trust. We do not think the Trust got something wrong when it cancelled his operation in November 2024 and referred him back to his GP. We think it got some things wrong when he arrived on the ward for that operation, but these did not have an impact on the Trust’s decision not to operate on him. We can see the Trust has apologised for what it got wrong, as we would expect it to do. We do not think the Trust got something wrong when it cancelled and rescheduled his appointments.

2. We recognise this has been a very frustrating and upsetting time for Mr Q, as he waited for his operation and for appointments about his urology care. We understand how worrying delays were and are for him and that he was in pain whilst waiting for his operation. We hope our statement will give him some reassurance about what has happened.