Man failed by poor district nursing care

What happened

In the first half of 2012, Mr P's father had a number of toes amputated because of his poor circulation. He was discharged from hospital under the care of the Trust's district nursing team. Between autumn 2012 and early 2013, a district nurse visited Mr P's father at his home on eleven occasions. During this period, he went into hospital four times with repeated foot infections.

Mr P complained that a senior district nurse failed to properly investigate his concerns, which meant he had to make a second formal complaint to the Trust.

What we found

The district nursing care provided to Mr P's father was poor and did not follow the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines or Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards. We also found failings in record keeping, which was not in accordance with NMC standards.

We could not link these failings to Mr P's father's repeated admissions to hospital with recurring foot infections. This is because he was at high risk of wound infection as he had just had surgery, was elderly, and was receiving medical treatment that weakened his immune system. However, the failings caused Mr P and his father uncertainty, worry and distress.

The actions to initially investigate Mr P's complaint were inappropriate and ill-considered. The senior district nurse did not update Mr P or tell him about the result of her investigation. This meant that Mr P had to make a formal complaint to the Trust many months later, repeating the same facts.

Putting it right

The Trust wrote to Mr P apologising for the poor district nursing care and poor complaint handling, and paid him £1,000 compensation. The Trust also prepared an action plan describing what it would do to make sure that it had learnt lessons from the failings we identified.