Ambulance trust's conflicting complaint responses caused grieving wife added distress

What happened

Mrs W made an emergency call when her husband, Mr W, experienced chronic back and abdomen pain, a week after having investigations for pancreatitis. Mrs W said that there was a delay of about two hours before an ambulance arrived.

She said that the sole paramedic, who arrived ten minutes after the emergency call, did not provide Mr W with pain relief, did not request urgent back up, did not carry out welfare checks and made Mr W walk to the ambulance. Mr W died of pancreatitis and septic shock three days later.

When Mrs W put her complaint to the Trust, she says that she experienced delays in receiving both updates and responses, and that the responses provided contained information which was contradictory.

What we found

The Trust apologised for the unacceptable delay in dispatching an ambulance. We found no evidence that this contributed to Mr W's death.

The paramedic should have chased up the whereabouts of the ambulance and asked for advice about possible further pain relief. Again, this was acknowledged and apologies offered. In addition, the Trust had taken appropriate steps to stop this happening again. Therefore we did not uphold these parts of the complaint.

While the Trust experienced staffing issues during the complaints process, it should have kept Mrs W informed about how her case was progressing. In addition, although the Trust answered all of Mrs W's questions, contradictory information, and changes to the complaints team, added to Mrs W's confusion and distress at a difficult time. This was not acknowledged adequately by the Trust and we upheld this part of the complaint.

Putting it right

The Trust wrote to Mrs W to acknowledge the conflicting information in its responses and to apologise for the confusion and upset caused. The Trust also told Mrs W about the recent changes made to improve its complaint handling.