Poor communication by Trust

What happened

Ms T received support from the community mental health team. In 2013, she complained about the adequacy of support available to her.

Also in 2013 Ms T's psychiatrist told her that it was possible to discharge her from the service because she was considered to be stable and functioning well. The decision to discharge her was made the following year and she was discharged in spring 2014. In summer 2014, the Trust made major changes to how it delivered mental health care.

Ms T was concerned that the decision to discharge her was made because of her complaint. She also believed it was inappropriate to discharge her. She said this had left her without access to appropriate support mechanisms, and she was confused and frustrated.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. We found there were no failings in the discharge arrangements; however, we noted that there was no written care plan when Ms T was discharged, and there was poor communication about what would happen to her when the structure of mental health care provision at the Trust changed. We also found there was poor complaint handling because there were conflicting messages in the complaint response about whether or not she had a key worker.

Putting it right

The Trust apologised to Ms T for the failings, clarified what was currently available to her, and reviewed its approach to complaint handling to make sure that there were no conflicting messages in future.