Decision Report 201606956

Summary

Mrs C complained on behalf of her son (Mr A) about the care and treatment provided to him by the board in relation to his Crohn's disease (a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines). Mrs C had a number of concerns, including that one of the medications he was prescribed resulted in him developing steroid-induced diabetes and that this had not been monitored appropriately. She was also concerned that Mr A was not appropriately prepared prior to surgery to remove the colon. Mrs C felt that Mr A should have been offered support and counselling on the seriousness and potential consequences of the surgery.

We took independent advice from a gastroenterologist, a GP, and a colorectal surgeon. We found that there were aspects of Mr A's care that were reasonable, including the care provided to him prior to his surgery. However, we found that there was a failing of a consultant to clearly delegate the monitoring of Mr A's blood sugar levels to his GP. We also found that the board had not followed the UK Inflammatory Bowel Disease standards when managing Mr A's care in that they did not discuss him at a multi-disciplinary meeting. Therefore, we upheld Mrs C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise for failing to provide reasonable clinical treatment. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at https://www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• Any instructions from a consultant to a GP should be communicated to the GP in a clear manner.
• The board should consider adopting the UK Inflammatory Bowel Disease standards in the management of similar patients.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.