"I regret I left my dying father in hospital"

I contacted everyone I could think of to highlight the problems with the system/care of the elderly both in the community and hospital settings in my area. Due, in my view, to a missed diagnosis by the GP, my father ended up in hospital and then a care home where he passed away last October 2023.

There was then an issue because he passed away having not seen a GP in the short time he was in the care home. It seems that none of the GPs in the practice deem it necessary to visit a dying patient, despite the fact that this impacted on the ability to certify the death. The death certificate then cited COPD as one of the factors causing his death - despite the fact that he hadn't suffered from COPD and was not taking any medication for this complaint - apparently there was an error in the medical records.

I am appalled to say that none of the organisations I contacted were really interested, and it seems that actually, no-one is responsible for the NHS as a whole, which could partly account for the state it is in. The responses received were:

- Department of Health: the Minister is “not responsible for the day to day operation”- which I was well aware of but as the department provides the funding the secretary of state should be interested;

- the Care Quality Commission (CQC) "do not investigate individual complaints but do seek assurances about any patient safety issues";

- NHS England "can only investigate about services it commissions so complainants should contact the local ICB"

- the local Integrated Care Board (ICB) passed the complaint back to the Trust concerned to effectively 'mark its own homework'

After wholly unsatisfactory replies from the Trust, I passed it back to the ICB and asked whether, as commissioners of services, they were happy with the replies. I was assured they would look into it and come back to me. 

Three months later I received a reply from them telling me that they are "unable to investigate your individual complaint as we do not have the powers to do this" but they will "undertake a wider learning review in both providers looking at how they respond to complaints". After another 2 months and 2 reminders, I received a reply addressing some of the issues, but once again ignoring those that they either cannot answer or find uncomfortable.

The initial GP Practice did answer my letter and rang to discuss the concerns but the trainee GP responsible for the initial diagnosis was on long term sick leave; the supervising GP had left the practice and the lead GP gave his opinion on what the trainee GP had written, i.e. that the trainer ‘eventually’ agreed with the action taken.

It is concerning that apparently no-one can hold Trusts/GPs to account for a lack of care and maladministration in terms of records. My father’s hospital records have some of the medicines administration charts missing.

This is a Trust that left a confused 92 year old sat on a chair in only incontinence pants and a T-shirt during visiting, continued to give laxatives despite the patient having diarrhoea, left 'soiled' laundry in bags on the top of the table and on top of the locker and in bags mixed with ordinary used laundry - I could go on but would run out of space.

The Trust signed off replies without checking accuracy/layout - in my view displaying the contempt for families and those seeking answers. It is now almost a year since my father passed away and I am still waiting for answers to some of the issues I raised. I for one have no faith that any 'lessons have been learned’ or that anything will change.

In the space of approximately 12 weeks in the ‘care’ of the NHS, my father went from living independently in his own flat to being incontinent and unable to walk – subsequently dying.

Whilst I appreciate he had had ‘a good innings’ as they say, the manner of his death, with no dignity, was unnecessarily cruel and it is my abiding regret that I didn’t move him from the hospital sooner.