Trust staff were rude to a vulnerable patient and his mother

What happened

Miss G complained that during a hospital stay staff did not give her son, who had learning difficulties and complex medical needs, adequate care, and so she had to provide this care herself.

She said some staff members were rude to her, and some were verbally abusive which caused her distress. She believed there was one occasion where a nurse tried to give her son an injection of insulin when he did not require it, and she thought that if this had happened, he would have died.

She also complained that staff should not have admitted her son to the ward because he was vulnerable, and it exposed him to inappropriate people.

She said staff prevented her from taking him out of the ward to get some fresh air. Finally she complained that she was not allowed to sleep by his bedside, and she was made to sleep in a storage room.

The Trust investigated Miss G's complaints before she brought them to us. It accepted that staff had been abusive and rude to Miss G on a number of occasions and apologised for this. It also accepted that some of the care it had provided was not to the standards Miss G expected, and apologised for this. The Trust advised Miss G that the room she slept in was a day room and that it could not allow her to sleep on the ward because it had a single sex policy. The Trust concluded that it had found no evidence that a nurse had tried to give her son insulin, and said that it prevented Miss G leaving the ward because she had threatened to take her son home and he was too unwell at that stage for his treatment to be stopped.

Miss G brought her complaint to us because she disputed some of the conclusions to the Trust's investigations. She did not think that it had gone far enough to put things right.

What we found

We did not uphold this complaint. There were times when the Trust did not provide adequate care, but generally the standard of care was appropriate. There was no evidence to suggest that the insulin incident occurred, and the ward in question was the most appropriate ward for her son as it provided the specialist care he required. But staff members had been rude and abusive to Miss G and her son.

Staff correctly prevented Miss G from leaving the ward until they knew she was not going to take her son home. The room she slept in was a day room with some storage in it, but this was the only place available for her to stay.

The Trust had already apologised to Miss G, and apologised to her again. It also gave her personal letters of apology from individual staff members. It held resolution meetings with her, and tried to agree solutions that suited all parties for her son's future care, and to make sure similar failings did not reoccur.

The Trust also increased its staffing levels on the ward and gave staff further training about attitude. We concluded that the Trust had adequately remedied the complaint and no further action was necessary.