Dead patients across Scotland have accidently been sent questionnaires asking them how they rated their stays in hospital.
Figures obtained by the Press and Journal have revealed that more than 50 people who had passed away were asked to take part in the recent study commissioned to find out how well health boards are faring.
The first ever inpatient ‘experience survey’ was slated in 2011 when it emerged that more than 900 dead people – including 222 in the north and north-east – had been posted a survey.
Patient groups branded the mistake “unforgivable”, while the government said they were urgently reviewing what went wrong.
Despite a major rethink into death checking, a government spokesman confirmed that surveys were still being sent out to patients who had passed away.
Results for 2014 showed that 51 questionnaires were sent to dead people in Scotland, including eight in the Grampian area and three in the Highlands.
One was sent out in Shetland.
Sixteen were sent out in Glasgow, while six were sent out in Tayside and Ayrshire & Arran.
The study asks former patients if they felt they were able to spend enough time in hospital with the people that matter to them.
They are also asked if they felt confident they could look after themselves when they left hospital, and if they got enough emotional support from staff.
Last night, MSPs said the oversight was “unacceptable” given the sensitive nature of the questions, and that bereaved families should not have to put up with such an “upsetting” mistake.
The government spokesman said it was doing all it can to reduce the number.
But he added that a “small number” of people do slip through the net, mostly because their deaths are not registered at the time the surveys are sent out.
“We understand that receiving a healthcare survey addressed to someone who has recently died can be upsetting, and we make every effort to prevent this from happening,” he said.
“Before we send out survey questionnaires and all subsequent reminders to patients, we carry out checks on the survey sample to identify any patients that have died.
“The process for identifying such patients involves removing questionnaires right up to and including the day that any correspondence is sent out.
“Over the course of the most recent survey we identified and removed 1,481 people from the sample in this way.”
Labour MSP Richard Baker, who has made repeated calls for patient experiences to be improved, said one wrongly targeted patients was one too many.
“We have to bear in mind how upsetting it must be for bereaved families to receive correspondence of this nature,” he said.
“These things do happen – information is sent out by numerous organisations to people who have passed away.
“However, these are sensitive questions which 51 families should not have to read.”