Miss A complained about a delayed referral for her son, B, to be considered for a formal Autism Spectrum Disorder assessment. Miss A complained that due to errors on the Health Board’s part, B’s referral was delayed from February 2021until April 2022, and his place on the waiting list was not confirmed until 7 February 2023. Miss A said that the Health Board would only backdate B’s confirmation date to 21 June 2022, because its computer system would not allow any earlier backdating.
The Ombudsman found a number of errors on the Health Board’s part, including a failure to make a referral in a timely fashion/at all, poor communication and failures to properly complete paperwork. Had the referral been properly administered, B’s place on the waiting list would have been confirmed on 15 August 2021. The Ombudsman also found that the Health Board’s system for backdating waiting list entries in the face of errors on its part, was unfair.
The Health Board agreed to apologise to Miss A, to backdate B’s place to 15 August 2021 and to take action to amend its systems to allow similar backdating in the future. The Ombudsman considered this to be an appropriate remedy and did not investigate.