Summary
Mrs C complained about the care and treatment her mother (Mrs A) received in the Glen O'Dee Hospital following a hip operation. The initial plan was for Mrs A to return to her own home following physiotherapy, but after a fall she said she wanted to be discharged into a care home. Mrs C complained that after the fall, staff at the hospital failed to recognise that a screw in Mrs A's hip had become displaced and that a further fall was not recorded in Mrs A's records. Mrs C also said that communication with her and her mother was inadequate and that the board failed to take her views into account when reaching a decision to discharge Mrs A into a care home.
We took independent advice from a physiotherapist, a GP and a nursing adviser. We found that after her fall, Mrs A's physiotherapy treatment continued and she said she was not experiencing any pain. It was only when Mrs A began to feel pain that the situation was brought to the attention of a doctor who referred her to another hospital where she was x-rayed and the displaced screw was diagnosed. While Mrs C believed that there had been a subsequent fall, we found no evidence of this. However, we found that communication between the hospital and Mrs C had been poor as she had not been alerted to the fact that her mother had experienced a fall and we upheld this part of the complaint.
However, we also found that Mrs A had been quite definite in wishing to be discharged to a care home despite her daughter's wishes. While the board took Mrs C's wishes into account, Mrs A had capacity to make her own decisions and the board had to acknowledge this. It was only later that Mrs A changed her mind and agreed to be discharged to Mrs C's home. We did not uphold this complaint.
Recommendations
We recommended that the board: apologise to Mrs C for the failings identified in this report; and ensure that the nursing staff concerned are fully aware of their responsibilities regarding communication under the relevant section of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201507703 as a PDF (12.96 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018