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Case ref:201102774
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Date:March 2012
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Body:Lothian NHS Board
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Sector:Health
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Outcome:Upheld, action taken by body to remedy, no recommendations
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Subject:policy/administration
Summary
In 2011, Miss C viewed her maternity records relating to the death of her son in 1993. She submitted a list of clinical questions and asked to meet with someone to discuss these. However, there was a delay in this request being processed, which Miss C complained about to the board. She later also complained about the way in which her complaint was handled.
Miss C's questions and meeting request were submitted in early September 2011 and were not passed to clinical staff to address until mid-December 2011. We agreed that this was an unreasonable delay and upheld Miss C's complaint. However, as the board assured us reasonable steps had been taken to avoid a similar future occurrence, and as they had already apologised to Miss C, we did not make any recommendations.
Miss C submitted her complaint about the delay in late November 2011 but it appears to have then been confused with her original clinical request which had yet to be addressed. This resulted in further delays and ambiguity and we, therefore, considered that the board had not responded to Miss C's complaint in an accurate and timely manner. We, therefore, upheld this complaint. However, we were satisfied that this was an isolated incident and that appropriate remedial action had been taken by the board and we did not make any recommendations.