For those of you who have been supporting me in my saga of caring for my mum, I had the response back from the Surgery today. I put in a formal complaint about their inability to assess and identify her Mental Health conditions, which led to her making arrangements at Christmas to leave the Care Home and run off to Devon.
Well, as expected the response was nonsense and arrived after the 28 day statutory deadline. They used the incorrect name for Mum throughout and it was just a chronological list of their contact with her. They haven’t addressed my complaint at all. Mum’s suicide threat and plan remains unaddressed, and they have just relied on the fact that Mum denied having made it. I have been told that a reported suicide threat requires clinical consideration and documentation, regardless of later denial.
On top of that they completely confuse mental capacity with mental health and just keep repeating that Mum has capacity and they found no mental impairment. Of course the DOLS team has since been in and completely refuted that and my complaint was about lack of recognition of her mental health challenges, not her capacity.
There is No explanation in the response for the missing records, as in no recording of my concerns and observations of Mum’s declining behaviours, or notes on the big MA meeting we had in January. That to me is a serious governance issue.
Interestingly, you may remember that we were told at the meeting that a diagnosis of MPD existed, but this was not recorded. They now deny in the paperwork I received that a diagnosis was ever made, but do not explain how that happened, just an apology that the GP’s comments “gave the impression” that a personality disorder diagnosis was being considered!
They repeatedly rely on comments from Care Home staff, that no concerns were reported by them, thereby ignoring reports from family and my disclosures of direct risk.
So all in all, it is just a procedural response and not an investigative one. There has been no critical examination of the issues I raised at all. I contacted the local Integrated Care Board, who didn’t want to get involved, as they said the practice had already investigated. So my next move is the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman! Nottinghamshire Mental Health Services are under such scrutiny at the moment, because of certain cases in the news, wouldn’t you think they would be trying to make improvements and learn from their failings?
I could also do what my husband suggests and leave it be now, for the Care Home and Social workers to deal with Mum………. 
thank you if you have ploughed through all this 
