NHS letting down bereaved families

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said that NHS investigations into patient deaths are inadequate, causing extra suffering to bereaved families.

The CQC report is the culmination of a one-year inquiry on the back of some high-profile cases of neglect, finding that grieving relatives are too often shut out of investigations or left without clear answers.

The CQC's review looked at NHS trusts in England providing acute, community and mental health services, placing a particular focus on people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities, considering evidence from more than 100 families.

The report concluded that the level of acceptance and sense of inevitability when people with a learning disability or mental illness die early is too common, and that there is a current failure to prioritise learning from deaths so that action can be taken to improve care for future patients and their families. This is in part due to there being no consistent national framework in place to support the NHS to investigate deaths.

Additionally, and most painful or families, is that discovery that many carers and families do not find the NHS to be open or transparent, and that families and carers are not routinely told what their rights are when a relative dies, what will happen or how they can access support or advocacy.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals at the CQC, said: “We found that too often, opportunities are being missed to learn from deaths so that action can be taken to stop the same mistakes happening again.

“While elements of good practice exist, there is not a single NHS trust that is getting it completely right currently. An agreed framework needs to be established that sets out exactly what the NHS should do when someone dies and ensures that families and carers are fully involved and treated with respect.

“Investigations into problems in care prior to a patient's death must improve for the benefit of families and importantly, people receiving care in the future. We have made a number of recommendations for action as a result of this review. This is a system-wide problem, which needs to become a national priority.”