Appropriate clinical care poorly explained

What happened

Mrs A was taken to A&E suffering complications after a total knee replacement. Staff stopped the medication that Mrs A was taking to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and three days later she suffered a stroke.

Mrs A's husband felt that the stroke was related to stopping the medication and complained to us.  Mr A also complained about a number of other aspects of Mrs A's nursing and personal care and the quality of the Trust's responses to his complaint.

What we found

The decision to stop the medication to prevent DVT was correct. This medication is believed to cause as many problems as it might solve and its use to prevent strokes is not recommended. The medication would only be used to prevent strokes in patients who also suffered from an irregular heart rate, which Mrs A did not. We were also able to confirm that the Trust was correct in saying that the type of stroke Mrs A had was not one that could have been caused by stopping the medication.

The concerns expressed about nursing and personal care had already been discussed directly between Mrs A and the Trust, and Mrs A had agreed that her concerns had been addressed to her satisfaction.

However, the Trust's response to the complaint about Mrs A's stroke was not presented in a way that either Mr or Mrs A could reasonably be expected to understand. A number of unexplained clinical terms were used and this meant that a lay person would not understand what the Trust said.

Putting it right

The Trust wrote to Mr and Mrs A to apologise for the poor quality of its written response.