In this month’s edition of the Ombudsman’s findings, we highlight our recent investigation report.
This month we published decision reports from 15 complaints investigated by the Ombudsman. Fourteen of these were about health services and one about a university. The outcome of these 15 complaints were
• Fully upheld: 8
• Not upheld: 6
• Resolved: 1
We made 32 recommendations to public bodies.
Our published decision reports can be read on our website.
Investigation report 202308705
This month we published one investigation report about the health sector. In this case, we made a significant finding and laid a detailed report before Parliament.
We publish our reports so that others can learn from the findings to prevent similar outcomes in the future.
We found that a health board failed to provide reasonable nursing care and treatment to a patient with metastatic prostate cancer.
The board did not adequately assess or manage the patient’s pain, failing to act on specialist advice and information provided by the patient’s spouse about non-verbal indicators of pain.
There were also a number of avoidable incidents, including the ward running out of medication and the patient gaining access to medication they should not have been able to access.
We made three recommendations to the board. We asked them to apologise to the patient’s family and ensure staff are competent in the use of relevant pain management tools.
Our published investigation reports can be read on our website.