NHS chief apologises after care 'fell below standard'
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HEALTH bosses have apologised to a widow over care given to her husband, who later died.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) investigated the case of a “Mr C” who died in September 2015 after being admitted to Raigmore Hospital with what was initially diagnosed as sepsis.
The watchdog report just published said that while that diagnosis was “reasonable” given Mr C’s symptoms the subsequent treatment was more appropriate for cases of severe sepsis or septic shock.
Mr C was administered a litre of intravenous saline as quickly as possible and then a second litre after he deteriorated.
Experts said this treatment “likely caused him to develop heart failure... and pulmonary oedema (fluid in the lung)”.
Doses of further medication including morphine were also “inappropriate” and “also likely to have caused Mr C’s condition to worsen.”
Ruling that care provided in the hospital’s emergency department “fell below a reasonable standard”, the ombudsman also upheld a further complaint around poor communication as “Mrs C” complained she was left waiting in a side room for more than half-an-hour without any update on her husband’s condition.
It transpired staff in the Intensive Treatment Unit had been looking for her, but no note had been made of where she was at the time.
Two further commplaints by Mrs C – that treatment was unreasonably influenced by inaccurate records and that hospital staff failed to consider her wishes that no further attempts to resuscitate her husband be made after he suffered a first cardiac arrest – were rejected.
NHS chief executive Elaine Mead apologised to Mr C’s family and said that, in line with the report’s recommendations, a review would be carried out with the staff who had cared for him.
