Decision Report 201601079

Summary

Mrs C complained that her mother (Mrs A) was left sitting in a chair for nine hours without access to a bed, whilst waiting to be moved to a new ward. Mrs C said that Mrs A had asked to go to bed during this time. The board told us that Mrs A had chosen to sit in her chair and was offered access to a bed in a side room if she wanted to lie down. We found that nursing records had not been kept on the day in question and we upheld the complaint because there was a lack of evidence of proper nursing care on the day in question.

Recommendations

We recommended that the board:

• offer an apology to Mrs A which recognises that she has a different account of what happened to that of the staff nurse, and which acknowledges the failure to keep reliable nursing records, and outline the steps taken to address the issues with ward staff.