A report out today has revealed a series of failings in the health service in Kent and Medway that have been investigated this year.

Six complaints in the county have been looked into - including an 84-year-old woman who was wrongly discharged from an East Kent hospital to an empty house with no medication and a catheter still fitted.

The Ombudsman said failures were having a 'devastating impact' on some patients' lives.

In one investigation a 72-year-old woman had a large artery in her thigh which was blocked.

In discussion with doctors, her family chose to allow the condition to stabilise while managing the pain and she was discharged to a nursing home.

The woman, named as Mrs Y, suffered from gangrene, which worsened and spread to her ankle.

A GP called the hospital to make an urgent referral and for her to be readmitted.

The hospital told the GP that she was not fit for surgery and the hospital could not do anything for her.

A hospice nurse was assigned to arrange an end-of-life care plan. But the woman’s condition declined rapidly and her family were told she would die.

After a further two weeks, at the prompting of nursing home staff, a GP arranged for her to be taken by ambulance to the Trust.

She was admitted through the emergency department and her leg was amputated.

The Ombudsman found she was wrongly refused readmission by a junior doctor, who made an error of clinical judgment.
As a result, her condition deteriorated very significantly and she was placed at high risk of death.

The Trust paid the woman £2,000 in recognition of the distress, pain and unnecessary risk caused.

In a separate case, a young girl suffered a brain injury and after six months in hospital and a rehabilitation unit she was discharged to the family home.

She was given weekly physiotherapy from Medway Community Healthcare for 14 weeks and this was reduced to monthly sessions.

Her mother complained about this reduction and also said appropriate goals had not been set for the family to work towards.

The Ombudsman ruled it was right to reduce the frequency of the girl's therapy after 14 weeks, but the reduction should have been to fortnightly in the first instance.

The CCG and Medway Community Healthcare apologised to the mother for the failings identified.

"These investigations highlight the devastating impact failures in public services can have on the lives of individuals and their families" - Julie Mellor

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Julie Mellor said: "These investigations highlight the devastating impact failures in public services can have on the lives of individuals and their families.

"We are committed to being more open and transparent about our investigations and are publishing these summaries so people can see the types of complaints we look into.

"We hope this gives people the confidence to come to us to complain and shows how complaining makes a positive difference to the complainant and public services."

This second set of cases summaries contains almost twice as many case summaries as the previous release in August, which covered March and April.