HOSPITAL PAYS OUT £45K TO FAMILY AFTER BLUNDER
BOSSES SAY SORRY FOR KEEPING ELDERLY WOMAN ALIVE AGAINST HER WILL FOR 2 YEARS
NUNEATON hospital bosses have ‘apologised unreservedly’ and paid £45,000 to the family of an elderly woman who they kept her alive against her will for two years.
Board members at the George Eliot Hospital have stressed that lessons have been learnt following the high -profile case of 81-year-old Brenda Grant, from Nuneaton.
Mrs Grant suffered a stroke that left her unable to walk, talk or swallow in October 2012.
The gran had an advanced directive drawn up to say she should not have treatment to prolong her life if she were no longer of sound mind or had suffered from a list of medical ailments – but the hospital misplaced the important note.
This led to her being fed through a tube and then put into a care home and the living will did not come to light until TWO years later by Mrs Grant’s GP and the family, who had been unaware that it existed. It was during the public questions section of the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust board meeting that resident Michele Kondakor raised her concerns about how no-one at the Eliot was aware of the note.
“I can’t understand how that kind of thing happens, it went on for two years, what things are in place so that can’t happen again,” Mrs Kondakor said.
Catherine Free, medical director, explained that steps have been taken to ensure that it does not happened again. “The issue was about where the documentation was in the notes and the doctors and nurses who were treating the patient at the time, and indeed the family, were unaware that the patient had made an advanced directive stating what their wishes were,” she said.
“That information was in the notes but not in a place that was immediately apparent to the team treating her.
“So the steps we have taken, as organisation, to make sure that if patients tell us that they have an advanced directive, we store that information at the front of the notes, so that it is immediately obvious and we also electronic alert, on a patient’s record, so that there is another way of alerting staff to the fact that there is an advanced directive.
“The respect form is a form that has been introduced in the last year and has a question on the form, when we are talking to patients about their wishes and it asks is there an advanced directive from the patient, it gives us another prompt.”
She went on to add: “The final thing, that is really important, is that we would encourage all of our patients each other, to talk about to their families about their wishes about end of life care because sadly none of us know what is around the corner and we talk a lot to people’s families and the family weren’t aware of the patients’ wishes. I would encourage people to talk to their families.”
Kath Kelly, the hospital’s chief executive, added: “The family were not aware, that meant it was not communicated to our team, despite that, there was still a record that was logged in the notes and that is the learning for us,”
Dr Freeman added: “We, as an organisation, have apologised unreservedly for that.”
Mrs Grant’s daughter, Tracy Barker said she had sought legal advice from solicitors BTTJ, to highlight the case so the same thing did not happen to others.
The George Eliot Hospital Trust admitted liability and in an out-ofcourt settlement agreed to pay £45,000.