The flawed patient transfer system which went uncorrected
BY NIALL MCCRACKEN
A SYSTEM set up by a nursing home to assist the transfer of its most vulnerable residents in case of an emergency had disastrous consequences for one patient when he arrived at hospital with the wrong medication details, The Detail has learnt.
Matters were made worse when the shortcomings with the so called “hospital passport” records were not immediately picked up and corrected by the hospitals charged with the care of George Hunter, his family claims. George’s family believe these failures led to a series of events which would result in a spiral of declining health for George.
Despite immediately flagging up the issues around the incorrect information, the family discovered that the same system was still in place in the nursing home a year-and-a-half after the original incident. When the health regulator investigated the matter after repeated approaches from the family, it found that the information prepared to accompany other vulnerable residents to hospital in an emergency, was still incorrect.
