Trust failed to tell woman that her husband was dying

What happened

When Mr A's condition deteriorated, a nurse mistakenly rang Mrs A twice at her workplace instead of her home, even though it was during the night.

By the time the Trust realised the error and contacted Mrs A at home, she was not able to get to the hospital to be with her husband before he died.

What we found

The nurse had made a genuine mistake, and although the consequences were very serious, we did not consider the mistake to be a failing.

However the Trust's responses repeatedly failed to acknowledge or apologise for the mistake. This was a failing in complaint handling.

Putting it right

The Trust apologised and acknowledged its mistake. It paid Mrs A £250 compensation.

It put a plan in place to make sure it learnt lessons from this complaint and to ensure this did not happen again.