Trust learns from complaint about poor nursing care

What happened

Mrs N complained that nurses did not care for her mother properly in hospital. She was not encouraged to eat and drink properly and lost weight. She was also not kept comfortable in her bed, and on one occasion Mrs N found her in her own excrement. Mrs N also complained that staff seemed too busy to speak to her and she was not kept up-to-date about her mother's condition.

The Trust recognised some failings in its nursing care and communication. It apologised to Mrs N and said it had spoken to staff about this and had recruited more nurses. Mrs N told us that although the Trust had given her some reassurances, she did not think that anything would change.

Mrs N also complained that the Trust sent a letter containing sensitive information about her complaint to the wrong address. The Trust said it had reported this in line with its policy and Royal Mail had told it that the letter would be returned to it.

What we found

Some of the nursing care was poor. We saw that the Trust had already taken some steps to improve this. However, we thought it needed to do more to address Mrs N's complaint that her mother was not encouraged to eat and drink properly.

The letter was not returned and we do not know what happened to it. The Trust told us it has started putting return delivery stickers on all of its letters to help stop this happening again.

Putting it right

We asked the Trust to prove what action it had already taken, which it did. We reassured Mrs N about this. We told her the Trust had started a campaign to improve how nurses looked after patients' food and drink needs. We also told Mrs N that the Trust had started using return delivery stickers.