Scottish Public Service Ombudsman (SPSO)<\/a><\/strong> issued its ruling after the spouse complained about the care and treatment given to their late partner – referred to only as \u2018A\u2019 in the report.<\/p>\nThe bereaved spouse – dubbed \u2018C\u2019 in reports – complained about the treatment given to \u2018A\u2019 by the unnamed practice before they died from metastatic renal cancer.<\/p>\n
\u2018C\u2019 also raised concerns that \u2018A\u2019 was misdiagnosed by the practice and that they were not referred for further medical investigation when they should have been.<\/p>\n
In its findings, the SPSO said that the medical practice had provided a detailed timeline of appointments, symptoms, treatments, and actions taken, and that patient \u2018A\u2019 had a complicated medical history. The practice also argued that because \u2018A\u2019 had found it difficult to attend face-to-face appointments, this had made it difficult for doctors to assess the level of pain they were in.<\/p>\n
But the medical practice also acknowledged that there was \u201csome miscommunication\u201d between the practice and secondary care colleagues in physiotherapy.<\/p>\n
Issuing its findings, the SPSO said that although \u201cmuch of the care and treatment provided to \u2018A\u2019 had been reasonable\u201d it also found that that \u201csome consultations were unreasonable, and that red-flags were not always appropriately identified and\/or recorded and were not followed up\u201d.<\/p>\n
It continued: \u201cWe also found that the SAER was not completed in line with the guidelines. As such, we upheld both complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as telling the practice to apologise to \u2018C\u2019 \u201cfor the failures identified\u201d, it also listed areas for action to ensure such incidents are not repeated.<\/p>\n
It told the practice to begin a monthly meeting with professionals to discuss patients with complex medical presentations, and to hold gold standard meetings monthly including the clinical team, district nurses, and MacMillan nurses. Learning points from the SAER that was carried out should also be identified.<\/p>\n
It added: \u201cDocumentation of consultations, examinations carried out, and the points raised and discussed should be accurate and complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cTreatment should be in line with the relevant NICE guidelines specifically in reference to red-flag symptoms and signs. Clinicians should take action to identify if any red-flag symptoms are present and take appropriate action when they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients should be escalated\/ referred to hospital pathways when their presentation indicates it is appropriate. Communication and interactions with other health care teams should be carried out reasonably and effectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here<\/b><\/a> to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The unnamed medical practice has been told to apologise to the patient\u2019s spouse and implement several changes (stock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[18,135,475,474,19,17,11,2230],"class_list":["post-393399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-update-me"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116256548107292126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}