Administrative failings led to delay in treatment plan

What happened

After her GP's referral, Mrs G was first seen at the Trust's rheumatology clinic in mid‑2013. The rheumatologist decided that there were two possible diagnoses for Mrs G's back pain.

He told her that he would seek further information from a colleague in the radiology department and give her a firm diagnosis and a treatment plan within the next two weeks.

This did not happen and Mrs G repeatedly phoned the clinic to ask for an update on her case. Two months later, Mrs G had had no diagnosis or treatment plan from the Trust and asked her GP to refer her to a private specialist.

The private specialist diagnosed Mrs G's condition and formulated a treatment plan. Mrs G started her treatment privately later in 2013.

Mrs G complained to the Trust about the delays and the failure to give her a treatment plan. She said she had been forced to seek private treatment because of failings at the Trust and asked the Trust to reimburse her for the cost of her private treatment.

The Trust apologised to Mrs G and said that the delay had occurred because of failings in the communication between the radiology and rheumatology departments. The Trust said that it would not reimburse Mrs G for the cost of private treatment because the decision to go private was ultimately hers. The Trust gave Mrs G a treatment plan in winter 2013.

Mrs G came to us because she felt the Trust should financially compensate her for what had happened.

What we found

The Trust had acted reasonably in relation to the clinical issues in this case. It was reasonable for the rheumatologist to seek further information from radiology, and the treatment plan recommended was appropriate.

There was service failure in the administrative processes. The radiology department had taken longer than it should have done to respond to the query from rheumatology, and when it responded, it sent the response to the rheumatologist's individual email address rather than to the clinic. The rheumatologist did not see the information in his inbox and so did not forward this to the clinic.

The clinic had no process in place to ensure that information requests about patients were followed up. This meant that no one at the clinic chased radiology for the information, and no one kept Mrs G up‑to‑date with what was happening.

There were also failings in the way the Trust dealt with Mrs G's complaint. Although Mrs G complained in summer 2013 that she did not have a treatment plan, the Trust did not provide one until much later in 2013. The Trust did not fully investigate Mrs G's complaint when she contacted it. The Trust told Mrs G it could not answer all her questions when in fact information was available that would have allowed it to respond in full.

Putting it right

In its response to Mrs G's complaint, the Trust said that it had put new measures in place to address the administrative issues highlighted by Mrs G. We were satisfied that the changes should reduce the likelihood of similar issues occurring again.

The Trust paid Mrs G £400 in recognition of the pain she suffered as a result of her delayed treatment and because of the frustration caused by the administrative error and the Trust's poor complaint handling.