The Trust did not take account of information Miss P gave in her preoperative assessment and this delayed her procedure. Miss P says this caused her great distress and that she had to leave the Trust without having the procedure. Ms P feels that the Trust did not deal with her compassionately or sensitively, considering that her partner had recently passed away.
What happened
Miss P went to hospital two days after her partner had died of a rare brain condition. Doctors told her she needed a hysteroscopy and staff carried out a preoperative assessment that day. The assessment concluded that Miss P's partner's condition had no implication for infection control. Miss P went to the hospital five weeks later for her operation.
After waiting for several hours, staff told Miss P that her operation had been delayed because staff had referred the matter to the infection control team because of her partner's death. Miss P was too upset to go through with the procedure and left the hospital.
What we found
Staff should have considered the information in the preoperative assessment to decide whether they needed to take specific action, such as speaking to the infection control team. Staff did not adequately update Miss P about what was happening, discuss concerns with her, or keep her meaningfully informed about what they were doing to find about her infection risk.
Putting it right
The Trust paid £250 to Miss P and agreed to update her on the changes it has made to avoid a recurrence of the failings identified in the report.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
Blackburn with Darwen
Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right
Compensation for non-financial loss