Decision Report 201605947

Summary

Miss C, who is an advocacy and support worker, complained on behalf of her client (Miss A) about the clinical treatment Miss A received for her urinary problems. In particular, Miss C complained about the board's decision to withdraw support from community nursing services. Miss C also complained about a delay in actioning Miss A's request for a second opinion from the urology service.

We took independent advice from a consultant urologist. We found that a number of clinicians involved in Miss A's care had taken the decision to withdraw the support from community nursing services as the care being provided was no longer clinically appropriate. We found that there was no evidence of failings in the urology care provided to Miss A. We were also satisfied that Miss A's needs had been taken into account in arriving at the decision. As such, we did not uphold this aspect of Miss C's complaint.

We found that there had been a delay in actioning Miss A's request for a second opinion from urology services. We considered this to be unreasonable and we upheld this part of the complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Miss A for the delay in actioning the request for a second opinion.

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

• Requests for second opinions should be actioned timeously.

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.