When Mr P was admitted to have surgery for a hernia on one side of his groin, the Trust operated on hernias on both sides without getting his consent.
What happened
Mr P was admitted for a hernia repair to the right side of his groin, in spring 2012. His surgeon told him he also had a hernia on his left side and gave Mr P the consent form to sign. When Mr P woke after the surgery, he found that the surgeon had operated on both sides of his groin. Mr P continues to experience pain and discomfort on the left side of his groin.
What we found
We decided that the Trust did not get proper consent from Mr P to operate on both sides of his groin. We also decided that the Trust had not investigated Mr P's complaint reasonably.
Putting it right
We recommended that the Trust apologise to Mr P and pay him £3,000. We also recommended that the Trust should put an action plan in place to learn the lessons from the failings and make sure they didn't happen again. As the surgeon had left the Trust by the time of the complaint, we made a separate recommendation that he should also prepare an action plan to learn lessons from the failings.
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
Reading
Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right
Replied with inaccurate or incomplete information
Not applicable