Reasonable overall care, but poor complaint handling

What happened

Mrs L was admitted to a hospital trust at the end of 2011 for stroke rehabilitation. Six months later she was discharged to a care home.

However, Mrs L was readmitted to the Trust after five weeks at the care home. She died a week later.

Mrs L's daughters, Mrs D and Mrs R, complained that the Trust did not provide adequate care and treatment for their mother during her first admission. They said that she was not in a fit state to be discharged, that doctors delayed diagnosing her stomach ulcer and treating her chest condition, that they failed to diagnose or treat a further stroke, and that Mrs L received inadequate care for Clostridium difficile (also known as C difficile) and inadequate physiotherapy.

Mrs D and Mrs R also complained that the care home provided inadequate care for their mother and did not handle their complaint appropriately. They said that their mother's needs were not adequately assessed before she was admitted to the home and that staff were not competent to care for her. They also complained that nurses did not properly administer oxygen and provided poor pressure area care for her, as well as that nurses replaced Mrs L's feeding tube despite instructions that it should only have been done by doctors in hospital. They complained too that the care home described their complaint as 'absurd, idiosyncratic, anecdotal and amateurish'.

What we found

There was a 12-day delay in the summer of 2012 in doctors taking further action on Mrs L's low oxygen levels. This delay fell so far below the applicable standards that it was service failure. However, the failing had no impact on Mrs L, so we partly upheld Mrs D's and Mrs R's complaint about doctors' failure to treat Mrs L's chest condition. There were no other failings in the Trust's care of Mrs L, which was reasonable overall, so we did not uphold any of the other complaints about the Trust.

We found no failings in the care that the care home provided for Mrs L, so we did not uphold any of Mrs D's and Mrs R's complaints about this. However, we upheld the complaint about the way the home replied to their concerns.

We found the care home was not 'being customer focused' by using such insensitive and dismissive terms to describe the complaint, and this was maladministration.

Putting it right

The Trust wrote to Mrs D and Mrs R within one month of the final report, acknowledging the failing in care we had identified. The Trust has explained what action it has taken, or will take, to prevent similar failings from happening in the future.

The care home has written to Mrs D and Mrs R to apologise for the way it responded to their complaint. It has acknowledged and apologised for the impact that this had on Mrs D and Mrs R.