A much-loved Aberdeen grandfather was not provided reasonable end of life nursing care at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Lawson Thain, 86, was admitted to hospital after breaking his hip in a fall at his care home on February 23, 2021.
The father-of-four and grandad-of-eight, a former professional boxer who had been battling dementia for 16 years, died six weeks later, on March 8.
His daughter, Donna Ewen, filed a complaint to the SPSO arguing that her dad “had not being treated with dignity” and that he “had been left without food or water.”
This week, following a two-year investigation, the Ombudsman upheld that there is no evidence that Mr Thain “was cared for in a dignified and respectful manner” while finding “gaps in record-keeping in relation to food and fluid intake.”
Aberdeen grandad was not cared in ‘dignified and respectful manner’
The SPSO identified a total of five failings by NHS Grampian, mistakes that the Board initially refused to accept.
“My father was let down even in death, when the authorities refused to accept that they had failed to provide reasonable nursing care and treat my father in a dignified and respectful manner,” Donna told The P&J.
The loving daughter decided to pursue a complaint, which she described as “not an easy thing to do.”
She said: “My training as a journalist helped me check records and present our arguments objectively but it was nevertheless harrowing.”
Now, the Ombudsman has upheld her complaint, confirming that the Grampian NHS Board failed to provide reasonable end-of-life nursing care to her father.
After taking independent nursing advice, they discovered gaps in record-keeping in relation to food and fluid intake.
They also found that the board had failed to evidence that Mr Thain was cared for in a dignified and respectful manner.
Comfort rounding was also not provided as frequently as it should have been, considering his frailty and general condition.
The hospital further failed to demonstrate sufficiently frequent skin checks and repositioning, as the patient suffered from pressure ulcers.
Finally, the NHS board failed to maintain wound charts and there was also no evidence of oral care having been provided.
Regarding the Ombudsman decision Donna said: “In a way, I was praying that the SPSO would reject my complaints and reassure me that my father had received the best possible care.
“But now, it is harder to know that he was not always being properly cared for.”
Years of complaints about the NHS
Donna told The P&J that this was not the first complaint filed against NHS Grampian.
She said: “In 2014, I was forced to make a complaint about my father’s first Aberdeen care home.
“Staff had managed to lose my father from a secure unit for more than five hours one day.
“He was later found in a boiler room, dehydrated, hungry and soiled. The complaint was upheld.”
And six years ago, the SPSO upheld a complaint she filed against NHS Grampian and an Aberdeen GP Practice over the death of her brother Lawson.
Lawson, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, died at home from suspected heart failure at the age of 51.
She explained: “As 2016 got under way, it was clear that Lawson’s general health was rapidly declining, so we begged the authorities to intervene, but the care services weren’t there for this frail, disorientated, vulnerable human being.
“Both the NHS Grampian Board and the GP practice were deemed to have “acted unreasonably” in not admitting Lawson to hospital and the level of liaison between NHS Grampian’s community mental health team and Lawson’s GP was labelled “limited and ineffective.”
Reflecting on events, Donna does not believe her family is “cursed,” but suspects many people “are enduring the same fate in hospitals and care homes across the country.”
It comes as the latest National Centre for Social Research survey revealed that public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest ever level.
Just 24% of the participants said they were satisfied with the NHS in 2023, with nearly half (47%) of respondents saying the government did spend enough on health care.
NHS Grampian publicly apologies
NHS Grampian has apologised to Mr Thain’s family following the Ombudsman’s findings.
An NHS Grampian spokesperson said: “We accept the Ombudsman’s findings in this case and have undertaken to complete all the recommendations laid out.
“We wrote to the family last month to formally apologise, and we would take this opportunity to apologise again, publicly. The care we provided fell short of our own standards.”
