Mrs A complained about the care and treatment provided to her husband, Mr A, following a suspected stroke on 17 March 2019. In particular, she complained there was a delay in diagnosing diabetes, that record keeping had been poor, and that she felt the quality and timeliness of the Health Board’s written complaint response to her had not been adequate.
The Ombudsman’s assessment found that there had been a delay in diagnosing Mr A’s diabetes but that no clinical harm appeared to have occurred as a direct result of this failing. The assessment also found that the Health Board’s handling of Mrs A’s complaint had been poor, leaving Mrs A with unanswered questions, but that the Health Board had not yet been afforded the opportunity to respond to all of the concerns Mrs A raised with the Ombudsman.
The Health Board agreed, within 1 month, to write to Mrs A and reiterate its apology for the failures in care, apologise for the poor standard of complaint handling, provide redress of £250 in recognition of its poor complaint handling and Mrs A’s need to approach the Ombudsman and respond to the concerns she raised regarding the inaccuracies and spelling mistakes she highlighted in the Health Board’s complaint response.