District Nursing Service apologised for handling complaint poorly

What happened

Mrs R's GP referred her to the District Nurse Service for treatment of leg wounds. The district nurses regularly visited her but she developed a life threatening infection from her wounds, which led to a long hospital admission. She was unable to return to her previous level of independence and moved into a nursing home. Her nephew, Mr B, believed that the infection could have been avoided if the nurses had cared for her differently.

Mr B also complained that the Trust took seven months to respond to his complaint, and the response inaccurately said that his aunt had not been taking her antibiotics.

What we found

There were no failings in the care the district nurses gave Mrs R. However, the Trust handled Mr B's complaint about this poorly; its response took too long, and the first response contained an inaccurate statement. However, we did not uphold the complaint because the Trust had already apologised for the failings, explained the administrative error that led to the delay, and retracted the inaccurate statement about Mrs R. We considered that the Trust had already done all that we would expect to resolve this complaint.