Decision Report 201507618

Summary

Mr C said that until the age of 14 months, his son (child A) attended A&E at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children on several occasions. Mr C said that staff unreasonably failed to investigate child A's symptoms at these attendances and did not provide a correct diagnosis. Mr C believed that child A had had a lung infection since birth until the point at which he began to recover.

We took independent advice from a medical adviser who specialises in paediatrics. We found that there was no indication that either a chest x-ray or the prescribing of antibiotics during child A's attendances were necessary and that the care and treatment given to child A was reasonable. The adviser noted that children under one often have symptoms of viral upper respiratory tract infection during nearly half of their first year, and that the diagnosis and treatment decisions at each attendance at hospital were reasonable. We therefore did not uphold Mr C's complaint. However, we found that there were shortcomings in relation to assessment of risk factors and made a recommendation to address this. We noted these did not have an effect on the outcome of the standard of care received.

Recommendations

We recommended that the board:

• ensure the shortcomings identified in this investigation are addressed with relevant staff through training and supervision (where appropriate) and through audits.