Case summaries

These short, anonymised stories show the profound impact that failures in public services can have on the lives of individuals and their families.

Please note we have not published any new case summaries on this page since 2015. In April 2021 we began publishing our casework decision statements and investigation reports on our decisions portal.

Advanced filters

Type

Health

Parliamentary

Organisation

Location

Health cases only

Concerns

Results

Hospital unfairly detained man under the Mental Capacity Act

Summary 1065 | August 2015

A hospital held Mr M for 24 hours until a psychiatrist could see him, when it should have assessed him immediately.

Nursing home did not tell son about his mother's discharge from hospital

Summary 1064 | August 2015

Mrs W was discharged back to a nursing home after being in hospital but staff at the home did not tell her son until about four hours after she had arrived. She died soon afterwards.

Dental practice did not tell patient why it stopped treating him

Summary 1063 | August 2015

Mr F wanted a specialist procedure done at the Dental Surgery but the dentists said it could not be done. The Surgery eventually decided to stop treating him, but did not tell him why.

Missed opportunities to treat two-year-old child

Summary 1062 | August 2015

Doctors missed several opportunities to treat child before his cardiac arrest and gave him the wrong dose of a controlled antibiotic.

Poor root canal treatment caused pain

Summary 1061 | August 2015

Mr D said his Dental Practice inadequately completed a root canal procedure and did not give him antibiotics for an infection. He said that he lost two teeth because of this.

Possible missed opportunity to prevent suicide

Summary 1060 | August 2015

Miss J was admitted to the Trust following her third suicide attempt. But the Trust failed to manage the risks to her health appropriately, and Miss J took her own life a few days later.

Hospital missed opportunities to save man's sight

Summary 1059 | August 2015

Mr G went to the Trust's emergency Eye Clinic with complications after an eye operation. He had treatment but lost the sight in his eye and is now registered as severely sight impaired.

Patient's blood clot missed in A&E

Summary 1058 | August 2015

The Trust should have done further tests to check for a blood clot in Mrs N's lung before discharging her.

Trust failed to take action when it suspected sepsis

Summary 1057 | August 2015

Staff suspected Mrs P had sepsis but did not diagnose and treat this until she went to intensive care.

Specialist cancer care may have helped with pain

Summary 1056 | August 2015

Miss J thought her mother was dying, and so felt her hospital treatment was unnecessary and that she should have been given palliative care.