Decision report 201103434

Summary
Miss C was unhappy about communications with NHS staff when using mainstream services for her physical ailments. She raised various concerns about interactions she had had recently with NHS staff.

Miss C said that she felt that staff were not listening to her wishes or concerns and were not taking notice of an Advance Decision Letter (ADL) which set out her wishes as to what treatments she would and would not consent to. She attributed this to her mental health issues which were known to the staff who were dealing with her physical problems.
She was also concerned that a letter from the head of administration, who had been involved in her complaint, had been placed in her clinical case file. The NHS guidelines for dealing with complaints state that correspondence about complaints should not be held on a patient's clinical records.

On investigation we found, however, that this letter was in fact about the ADL, explaining its background and context. As such, although it was from one of the board's staff who had been heavily involved in her complaint, it was not complaints correspondence. We also considered that it was appropriate that an explanatory letter was placed in Miss C's file as ADLs are usually only used in the case of patients with terminal, life limiting, or life threatening conditions. This was not the case for Miss C.

Having considered all of Ms C's concerns, we did not uphold a number of her complaints and were unable to take others forward as they were either out of time; out of jurisdiction; or were already being considered under another complaint reference within SPSO.