Decision Report 201802686

Summary

Mrs C complained that the board unreasonably refused to offer her a consultation or further treatment to address her facial scarring. The board advised they would not offer Mrs C an appointment as they did not consider her facial scarring would be amenable to treatment.

We took independent advice from a plastic surgeon (a surgeon who repairs or reconstructs missing or damaged tissue and skin). We found that the board wrongly triaged (a process in which things are ranked in terms of importance or priority) Mrs C's referral according to the relevant protocol. We considered that Mrs C should have been offered an out-patient appointment to be assessed more fully. Therefore, we upheld Mrs C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Mrs C for failing to triage her referral appropriately and for the failure to offer her a face-to-face appointment with a consultant. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.
• Offer Mrs C an out-patient appointment for her to see an appropriate consultant.