Decision Report 201501021

Summary

Mr C complained to the health board that a staff member accessed his patient record without authorisation. Mr C complained to us about the time taken for the board to deal with his complaint, and that the board's response did not answer his concerns.

In replying to our enquiry, the board acknowledged failings in how they had handled Mr C's complaint. Board staff failed to recognise that the internal disciplinary process about the staff member involved was a separate issue from providing a response to Mr C's complaint; this failure led to the delay in responding to Mr C. In addition, the board should have provided Mr C with a clear explanation of how these matters were being dealt with, and that they could not tell him the outcome of the disciplinary process, much sooner than they did. We upheld Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the board:

• provide us with confirmation that the staff who dealt with Mr C's complaint acknowledge where things went wrong, so they will not repeat these errors in future.