"Report led to complaint and distressing experience"

I wanted to provide feedback on my experience with Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust having lodged a complaint with them August to December 2020. This is my feedback about how this has been managed.

I was discharged in June 2017 after 15 years care from the Adult MH services, following a report by a psychologist whom I had never met. In this report, the psychologist who discharged me made numerous mistakes in their discharge report. I was not seen for this report, and at the time it was written, I had not seen a Psychiatrist for over a year, and I had only known my support worker for 6 months.

At this time, my spouse was suffering a first major manic breakdown and was under the care of SHSCT: this, and the effects on me were not referred to in the letter.

Following my discharge, my mental health deteriorated and I became very depressed and suicidal. My GP initially attempted several times to get me re-referred to SHSCT.

In the autumn of 2017, I requested a copy of my Insight Notes to try and find out what had led to the discharge. A copy of the notes was sent, but they were heavily redacted, and did not include the psychologist’s report, so I had no grounds at that point to raise a complaint.

The GP supported me through years of very severe depression, which included daily suicidal thoughts and “writing a will”. During that time I lost all contact with friends and family: and ceased to have intimate relations with my spouse, speaking little, and was unable to go to the gym to keep physically well, except very occasionally.

I did not, after an attempt to get help from Out of Hours SHSCT support, contact them again, believing there was no help to be had. I had gone to A and E, interrupted by my spouse taking an overdose, and had been sent home with a leaflet from Age Concern and being told that my recovery was “up to me”.

It appears that advice came straight from the Psychologists report. In April 2020 I experienced a sudden lift in mood to hypo-manic, when Covid begun.

The GP, recognising this pattern did not fit my long term diagnosis of Depression, Anxiety and Agoraphobia, but rather indicating some form of bi-polar disorder, referred the me to Older Adults Community Mental Health team. In the referral letter the GP clearly stated that it was the discharge from Sheffield Health and Social Care which had triggered my lapse into severe depression.

On recovering enough to decide to at least review the full notes of the discharge, I requested their Insight Notes for 2017, to try and find out “why” discharge.

It took 2.5 months and the involvement at the highest level of SHSCT to get these full notes.

But at last, in August 2020 I received an email from the Complaints and Litigation Manager that clearly stated that the full complaint would be investigated, which included the GP’s letter of May 2020 outlining the consequences of discharge.

Significantly, this meant that SHSCT were prepared to investigate a complaint even though the date of the complaint was outside the normal time span complaints are allowed, on the grounds that I had been far too ill in the meantime to undertake a complaint.

In addition, the email clearly stated that the next step would be that I would have an interview with the officially appointed Independent Investigator. Requests for “support” to the C and L manager were met with assurances that the Investigator would assist in completing an adequate complaint.

However, the offers - of a full investigation of the all the period covered by a complaint and Independent Investigator - were retracted in a subsequent email.

They also refused to include the letter from the GP which detailed the consequences of the Discharge. I then tried to write an adequate formal complaint, but had not dealt properly with the inaccurate report, not knowing how to do this without help from the Investigator.

At this point, I contacted a mental health advocate at the Sheffield Advocacy hub. I then received a reply from SHSCT which, in summary, said -we are sorry if you feel you have suffered…we find no grounds to proceed further.

The CAB trained Advocate at the Sheffield Advocacy hub advised me that I could reply to the SHSCT’s response in an “Outstanding Concerns” document.

The Outstanding Concerns document was very full, with detailed references to dates, emails, commitments made for Investigators etc, and most significantly, it covered the Psychologists’ report in great detail, with proof of errors, all with the support of the Advocacy Officer.

However it was clear that SHSCT were unwilling to consider Outstanding Concerns, replying that I had “timed out” as the discharge had happened in 2017, despite their earlier acceptance of the timescale of the complaint.

This was in December 2020.

NHS policy on complaints states, “ensure that you are treated with courtesy and you receive appropriate support throughout the handling of a complaint" but I dont feel these standards were met.

I remain very upset that a Psychologist was able to write a faulty report which remains on my records, unchallenged, and that SHSCT were able at one moment to promise an Independent Investigator (ie, support and clarification) and then withdraw it: and that my Outstanding Concerns were turned down by an argument relating to the time scale of the complaint, although the time scale (ie the time between the events of June 2017 and the complaint) had initially in fact been accepted by SHSCT.

In the meantime I wish it to be noted that since June 2020 I have been under the care of Older Adults, SHSCT, and have been treated with respect, and caring, and that this part of SHSCT is working excellently in these difficult times.