Hospital did not give woman prescribed medication

What happened

Mrs C had several health conditions including heart problems, breathing problems and high blood pressure. She went into hospital having had diarrhoea for four days and was dehydrated. Mrs C's carer gave hospital staff a list of her medications but staff did not prescribe them, so Mrs C did not have them. Mrs C's daughter (Mrs F) realised the problem the following day and told staff. Clinicians prescribed the medications and staff gave them to Mrs C from the following morning, over 36 hours after she had been admitted. Later that afternoon, Mrs C began to have chest pains and staff gave her morphine. She died the next morning.

Mrs F complained that the failure to give her mother her medications had caused her to suffer unnecessary pain and ultimately caused her deterioration and death. Mrs F said this caused her emotional distress. Mrs F also complained about some comments made by staff.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. The Trust missed several opportunities to check that Mrs C was being prescribed the right medications. Although we did not find that this made Mrs C suffer or her health deteriorate, it caused Mrs F distress because she would always have doubts about whether her mother's life could have been saved and whether she suffered unnecessarily.

There was no evidence that staff deliberately offended Mrs F. We found no reason to criticise any of the statements made by staff that Mrs F complained about.

Putting it right

The Trust apologised to Mrs F for the doubts she had been left with because of its failure to prescribe Mrs C's medications. It also explained to Mrs F how it planned to improve the standard of care in this area.