David has Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to act on behalf of his grandmother Julie. David came to POhWER to ask for support to write a letter of complaint about something that happened during Julie’s recent hospital admission. David has dyslexia, a learning difficulty that can present challenges with reading, writing, and spelling. He needed help to draft the letter, as he finds spelling particularly hard, as he often confuses the order of letters in words and muddles up letters which look similar like b and d.

During her hospital stay, Julie had a brain scan. David was told that the scan showed nothing unusual. However, when Julie had returned home, a member of the Memory Team visited them and advised David that Julie had signs of mixed dementia as ‘shown on her recent scan.’

David was confused as to why he had been given conflicting information regarding his grandmother’s condition.

Charlie, a POhWER Advocate, visited David and Julie. Julie gave her permission for David to raise a complaint on her behalf. Charlie worked with David to draft a letter that set out what had happened, his concerns, and the outcome he wanted from the complaint. David then sent the letter to the NHS Trust.

David received an apology from the NHS Trust and an explanation as to why the errors had occurred.

David decided that he was not satisfied with the response, as nothing has been put in place to stop this from happening again. David felt empowered due to the support he had received from his advocate to take his complaint to the Public Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). David felt able to deal directly with his PHSO case worker on the understanding that if he needed further support, he could come back to POhWER and work with Charlie again.