3. Mr P complains the Trust left him unattended for several hours on 13 September 2021.
4. Mr P says this left him feeling unsafe when he visits the Trust and what happened has had a negative effect on his mental health, leaving him with stress.
5. Mr P would like financial compensation of around £2,000. He also wants the Trust to take steps to make sure this does not happen again.
6. The Trust monitored the pressure in Mr P’s head on 13 September 2021 and discharged him that afternoon.
7. Mr P told the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (our organisation) that when he was getting out of his car, the stiches on his head came open and he called the Trust. It advised him to call an ambulance. The local ambulance service did not send an ambulance as none were available, so Mr P’s mother drove him to the hospital.
8. The Trust sent Mr P straight to the urgent treatment centre (UTC). A doctor visited Mr P and advised the stitch had broken. The doctor placed Mr P in a side room that evening. Mr P fell asleep and woke up at 9pm when a doctor entered the room.
9. At 11.30pm a doctor assessed Mr P and admitted him to the main hospital. As there were no beds available, the doctor left Mr P in the room he was in.
10. Mr P says he fell asleep again just before midnight and woke just before 1am in darkness. The UTC closed at midnight.
11. Mr P walked to the hospital’s emergency department where a receptionist admitted him.
14. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the incidents complained about had a negative effect on the person, which the organisation has not put right. Having done this we have decided the Trust has already done enough to put right what went wrong.
15. In deciding whether an organisation has done enough to put things right, we look at whether the person affected has been put back into the position they were in before the events happened. This is the approach set out in our principles for remedy. If this is not possible, we can suggest a financial payment is made and we use our guidance on financial remedy, which includes our severity of injustice scale, to decide what would be an appropriate amount.
16. Mr P said he would like the Trust to guarantee that what happened to him will not happen to anyone else. The Trust has apologised unreservedly to Mr P for the mistake it made which ended in him being left alone in the UTC for over an hour. The Trust’s final complaint response discussed the issues Mr P pointed out and explained the improvements it has made.
17. The Trust has also reviewed the process for when patients are transferred from the UTC when it closes. The Trust has recruited more health care assistants to help with observation and monitoring in the UTC.
18. The steps and improvements the Trust has taken to help stop the same errors happening again are appropriate
19. Mr P said he would also like £2,000 in financial compensation. We think the injustice caused by the Trust’s error fits into level one of our severity of injustice scale.
20. The description for a level one says, ‘a case will generally be level one if we consider the person affected has experienced a low impact injustice such as annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience, typically arising from a single incident of maladministration where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration’. The scale says a level one injustice is not serious enough for financial compensation to be paid
21. This description fits with how Mr P was affected by the Trust’s error. The event was a one off incidence of service failure where the Trust’s actions affected Mr P for a short time (the hour where he was in the UTC). We would consider an apology to be an appropriate remedy for his complaint.
22. Our decision is the Trust has put things right in line with our principles. The Trust has apologised to Mr P and made improvements to its service to stop any future similar events happening. We recognise Mr P’s distress from being left alone and the impact this has had on him. We are grateful to Mr P for taking the time to tell us about this difficult experience.
1. We have carefully considered Mr P’s complaint about the Isle of Wight NHS Trust (the Trust).
2. We have decided the Trust has already done enough to put right what went wrong. It has offered an apology to Mr P and made service improvements to stop any future similar events happening. We are sorry to hear about what Mr P experienced and of the ongoing distress this caused him. We will explain below how we have reached our decision.