Saturday 29 August 2009

NHS sorry for dead patient letter

The NHS has apologised after writing to a man to address concerns over his treatment - three-and-half years after he died.

Tom Milner's daughter emailed the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) after her 76-year-old father died at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital.

Janet Brooks said when she received a response, it was entitled "Dear Tom".

The agency said it had reviewed its systems to ensure the error did not happen again.

Mr Milner, who had terminal leukaemia, was not given his prescribed pain-relieving morphine in the last two days of his life, his family say.


They claim he was left in agony and lay in his own urine and blood at the NHS palliative care ward at the hospital.

The health trust responsible for his care said staff had "acted appropriately".

Mrs Brooks, 54, of Emsworth, Hampshire, said she had outlined her concerns about her father's treatment in an email to the NPSA.

"They responded with 'Dear Tom'.

"It's an example of the careless and shambolic attitude by the NHS towards my father and our family."

2 comments:

DQ Matters said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DQ Matters said...

This is such a sad case and highlights yet again how important suppression and data quality are for all businesses, not just the NHS and other pubic sector bodies.

Businesses need to fully understand the pain and heartache which can be caused through inappropriate mailings like this and ensure their data is up to date.

85% of direct mail recipients agree that inaccuracies in the name and address reflect badly on the image of your company. That's because every time you mail to an address, you mail to a person, and people. whether they are consumers, business prospects don't like it when you get it wrong!

There really is no excuse for these mistakes when all it takes is a few minutes using data quality solutions to ensure the data is valid.

www.dqglobal.com