A recent report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) ordered by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has condemned a number of failings in hospitals and their duty to investigate deaths. Some of these failings included ignoring grieving relatives.

It was found that families and carers were not always informed in an appropriate manner about investigations or treated with any respect. What is more concerning is that a number of these failings were found regarding families or carers of people with a mental health problem or learning disability, resulting in these deaths not properly investigated or learnt from.

‘Deborah Coles, director of the charity Inquest had said that the review on how hospitals responded to deaths had exposed “a defensive wall surrounding NHS investigations, an unwillingness to allow meaningful family involvement in the process and a refusal to accept accountability for NHS failings in the care of its most vulnerable patients”.’

The report by the CQC was undertaken due to Southern healthcare NHS foundation trust had only investigated 1% of all deaths among patients with learning disabilities over four years.

Both hospitals and medical professionals have a duty of care to patients and must take into consideration individual patient rights as part of their daily duties. For more information on the importance of Duty of Care, Train Healthcare offer an online course available here.

News story taken from the Guardian news you can read the full article here.