Decision Report 201908741

Summary

Ms C complained about the decision of staff at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children to assess that two referral letters from her child's (Child A) GP should be graded as routine rather than urgent. Child A had ankyloglossia (tongue-tie); this occurs where the strip of skin connecting the baby's tongue to the bottom of their mouth is shorter than usual which affected their ability to feed. As the board had added Child A to the routine waiting list, Ms C paid for the procedure to be completed on a private basis, and Child A immediately improved their feeding ability. Ms C believed that the GP referral letters should have been graded as urgent which would have allowed the procedure to be carried out sooner.

We took independent advice from a consultant paediatrician (consultant specialising in the medical care of children). We found that as Child A was able to feed using a bottle and was gaining weight, there was no need to classify the referral letters as urgent; this was in line with board policy. We did not uphold the complaint.