Trust failed to respond reasonably to complaint

What happened

Mr J arrived at the Trust for planned surgery but was told the surgeon was not available and that it could not go ahead. There followed some disputed dialogue between Mr J and the Trust's admissions administrators that led to him being removed from the surgery list and referred back to his GP.

What we found

The Trust offered two responses to Mr J's concerns, both of which were poor. The Trust failed to acknowledge that Mr J had arrived for surgery and treated his complaint as a simple administrative error, failing to address some of his concerns.

The Trust initially also referred to supporting statements by staff that did not exist. The tone and wording of the Trust's responses did not reassure Mr J or us that it had recognised the nature of the complaint or done very much to address it.

Putting it right

We partly upheld Mr J's complaint. The Trust apologised to him and acknowledged that its previous responses did not fully or properly address his concerns. It also prepared an action plan to address the failings in its handling of Mr J's complaint.