Trust's poor communication led to delays in physiotherapy

What happened

Ms B had a road traffic accident and had an operation. When she was discharged the Trust did not arrange follow-up appointments as planned until she chased them up herself. Then a planned scan was cancelled with no explanation. The Trust gave Ms B an appointment for physiotherapy, which was cancelled because the physiotherapist was off sick. The start date for physiotherapy was changed several times and eventually Ms B was discharged from the physiotherapy service without having received any physiotherapy and without her consent.

The Trust's record keeping was also poor and this directly impacted on Ms B's experience at every part of her patient journey.

Ms B complained that she was frustrated, upset and inconvenienced by the time she spent sorting out the errors. She said the attitude of a member of staff in the physiotherapy department was poor. She wanted an acknowledgement of failings and service improvements for everyone.

What we found

The Trust had not properly acknowledged or explained what had gone wrong. We found that the processes for arranging physiotherapy and the attitude of a member of staff in the physiotherapy department had been poor.

We also found that the record keeping in every department dealing with Ms B had been inadequate.

Putting it right

The Trust agreed to apologise to Ms B, to carry out an analysis of what had gone wrong and to draw up an action plan to put this right. The Trust agreed to share this action plan with the Care Quality Commission, who monitor performance.