Trust made significant improvements, but we still found failings

What happened

Although the Trust had accepted that there were significant failures in the clinical care it had given Mrs P, Ms A's late mother, and also in its complaint handling, Ms A came to us because she did not believe the Trust had made enough improvements.

The Trust admitted that staff had not acted on a scan and an X‑ray that both showed a mass which was found to be cancer some months later.

The Trust explained that once staff had identified the error, there were failures in its complaint handling and it did not tell Mrs P about the mistakes it had made. The Trust explained that it had improved its complaints process.

We partly upheld the complaint.

What we found

Although the Trust had improved how it conducted and referred scans, there was still work to do to make sure it had a plan in place to prevent a backlog of unreported scans.

The Trust had not improved its complaint handling or decided how it would deal with cases in which it later found significant failures.

Putting it right

The Trust agreed to put in place a mitigation plan for any increase in unreported scan numbers.

The Trust agreed to give its multidisciplinary team and its complaints team evidence of its improved guidance.