Community healthcare service gave insufficient physiotherapy to child with brain injury

What happened

Miss B suffered a brain injury as a result of an illness. After six months in hospital and a rehabilitation unit she was discharged to the family home. For the first 14 weeks, Miss B received weekly physiotherapy from Medway Community Healthcare. This was then reduced to monthly sessions. Miss B's mother, Mrs B, complained about this reduction and also said that appropriate goals had not been set for the family to work towards. Mrs B also complained that Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG) misquoted her in a letter sent to her MP.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. It was right to reduce the frequency of Miss B's therapy after 14 weeks, but the reduction should have been to fortnightly in the first instance.

There was a gap in realistic goal setting for the first five months after Miss B returned home. In addition, the CCG had not represented Mrs B accurately in a letter to her MP.

Putting it right

The CCG and Medway Community Healthcare apologised to Mrs B for the failings we had identified. The CCG wrote to Mrs B and her MP to correct or retract the inaccurate statements made about her. Medway Community Healthcare paid Mrs B £1,022 to recognise the fortnightly physiotherapy that had not been provided.