“The assessment review of Mrs”

The coroner’s concerns

– (1) The assessment review of Mrs. Summers’ ability prior to her discharge on the 6th July 2013. There is no clear indication that an assessment had been undertaken prior to Mrs. Summers’ discharge on the 6th July 2013. Her condition was such that she required further readmission on the 7th July 2013. (2) During the further readmission on the 7th July 2013 Mrs. Summers was reviewed on a number of occasions by a physiotherapist. At the inquest Clinical Lead Physiotherapist, provided evidence and indicated that the physiotherapy written records did not provide a full record of all relevant details. These notes are reviewed by nursing staff in order to ensure the patient’s safe mobilisation and the preparation of appropriate care plans. I would ask you to consider that additional training and/or direction should be given to the Physiotherapy Department in order to ensure that a full record of all relevant details are made within patients’ records. (3) From the evidence presented at the inquest it appears that at the time when Mrs. Summers was mobilising in the early hours of the 14th July 2013 she was wearing her own “fluffy socks”. These were not slipper socks. She was clearly not wearing slippers at the time. In addition the health care assistant who was supervising Mrs Summers did not ensure that Mrs. Summers was seated on the toilet within the toilet cubicle before he left her. I would request you to consider training and guidance to nursing staff to ensure that, firstly, patients are wearing appropriate footwear prior to mobilisation and, secondly, to provide training guidance to staff of safe systems of transfer to ensure that patients are not left whilst in the process of transfer. (4) At the inquest Matron gave evidence in respect of an investigation which she undertook in respect of the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Summers’ fall. Matron indicated in her evidence that she had not received full training with regard to undertaking an investigation and preparing an investigative report. Although in her report she stated that one of the objectives was to consider if the fall could have been prevented, that question was not addressed in her report. When questioned by me she confirmed in evidence that the socks which Mrs. Summers was wearing at the time of her fall and the fact that she was left before she had effectively safely transferred on to the toilet are likely to have been factors which would have caused, or significantly contributed to Mrs. Summers’ fall. Neither of these points were identified in the report. I would request that in future all investigators receive the appropriate training to enable them to undertake a full and appropriate investigation.

An extract. Read the full report, including the circumstances of the death, on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.

Source

judiciary.uk, Prevention of Future Deaths reports, 2015-0139

Added to Minute Book

8 Oct 2026

Reuse

We show short extracts and link to the original. We don’t host the full report.

Something wrong, such as a date or who it was sent to? Report a mistake

Is this report about someone close to you? You can ask us to remove names from our pages.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, judiciary.uk. Open Government Licence v3.0