Decision report 201103377

Summary
Mrs C complained about aspects of nursing care that her late father (Mr A) received in hospital in the two months before his death. The complaints included that Mr A was not provided with basic nursing care in relation to personal and oral hygiene or to ensure that he had adequate food and drink. Mrs C also complained about the time her father spent waiting in accident and emergency to be admitted to a ward and that the staff failed to listen when the family pointed out Mr A's inabilities to care for himself.

We took advice from one of our medical advisers, who is a senior nurse. We upheld two of Mrs C's three complaints. We found that the records showed that the level of nursing care provided was appropriate, but it was unacceptable that Mr A had to wait for more than seven hours to be admitted to hospital. Also, although Mr A was in hospital for about six weeks, there was little evidence of communication from the nursing staff to his family, even in the final days of Mr A's life. We, therefore, found that communication from the staff to the family was inadequate and that the record-keeping about this should have been better.

Recommendations
We recommended that the board:
• remind nursing staff of their responsibilities to ensure that record-keeping is maintained in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code and Record Keeping guidelines; and
• apologise for the failure to admit Mr A to a ward within an acceptable timeframe.