Investigation reports

A woman complained that hospital delays contributed to her mother’s early death. We found a number of failings in her care and treatment. 

A woman complained about the care her elderly mother received over a 10 day period in the Mater Hospital.

We upheld parts of the complaint, including over how the hospital dealt with an incident in which the patient was in an agitated state, and the way it managed her food intake.  We found no failings over the complaints relating to sedation, toileting, and the patient's access to fluids.

The quality of care given to a young person with complex medical needs deteriorated when she turned 18.  

We criticised the Belfast Trust for not doing enough to prepare for her transition to adult care, noting with concern the lack of overall policies for managing this process.

We found that a woman was cared for appropriately in the Maternity Unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital, but said that clinicians should have recorded the discussions they had with her about the progress of her labour.

We asked the Belfast Trust to apologise to a man for taking 10 months to complete a criminal record check, thereby delaying his application to look after his grandchildren.

We found that the Belfast Trust did not properly assess a man’s healthcare needs before his admission to a nursing home. 

We asked it to apologise to the complainant and to review all applications for continuing healthcare from the last three years.  

We made recommendations for service improvement after we found failings in the way the Belfast Trust investigated the theft of a care home resident’s wedding ring.

We made a number of recommendations to the Belfast Trust after we found failures in the way it treated a patient with a fractured leg. 

We concluded that delays in removing her leg cast and in monitoring her pressure sores caused sepsis and contributed significantly towards her premature death.