Long wait for patient who was in ‘severe pain’
Staff at Perth Royal Infirmary were too slow to administer drugs to a woman in “severe pain” with back problems who later required surgery, a watchdog has found.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) also found staff failed to accurately document an assessment of the same woman when she presented at the Taymouth Terrace hospital a second time with the same problems following a complaint.
It did not uphold complaints, however, that there was any delay in getting the woman to surgery, that information subsequently passed to her GP was not “appropriately detailed” and that NHS Tayside did not answer questions relating to the timing of her surgery as had been alleged.
It has since recommended the health board ensures all its staff provide appropriate pain relief to patients in future and to apologise to the woman, identified only as Mrs C in its decision report, for failing to properly document her second assessment.
“We found that the first time Mrs C had presented to A&E she was appropriately assessed”, its report said.
“However, we found that the second time she presented there was a failure to accurately document the assessment undertaken, which meant that it was not possible to say whether it was appropriate to have redirected Mrs C to another service.
“We upheld this aspect of Mrs C’s complaint.
“We also found that when Mrs C was admitted to hospital, there was an unreasonable delay in providing her with pain relief, particularly as she had been recorded as being in severe pain.
“We also upheld this part of Mrs C’s complaint.
“With regards to her surgery we found that, based on Mrs C’s symptoms, there was no unreasonable delay in her having surgery.
“We found that the time between Mrs C being admitted to hospital and undergoing surgery was unlikely to have had any negative impact on her outcome.
“We also found that the information passed from A&E to Mrs C’s GP was reasonable and included all of the Perth Royal Infirmary
necessary information.
“We did not uphold these two aspects of Mrs C’s complaint.
“Mrs C had also complained that the [health] board did not answer her question regarding whether her current condition could have been avoided had she received emergency surgery at an earlier point.
“Whilst we recognised that this was an important matter to Mrs C, we did not consider this question to have been clearly asked of the board when she initially complained.
“We did not uphold this aspect of Mrs C’s complaint.”
A spokesperson for NHS Tayside said: “We have apologised to the patient and have taken action to address the recommendations in the report.”