DUDLEY'S mental health trust has been criticised by the Health Service Ombudsman for "poor care" after giving too much medication to a woman, who then fell and broke her back.

Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust has now paid out £1,750 compensation to the patient after eventually acknowledging its failings in her care.

The ombudsman's investigation found the prescription of anti-psychotic medication was for "too much too quickly" - but the report could not conclude that the medication caused the fall.

A woman had complained to the trust, based in King Street, Dudley, that staff had given her mother too much anti-psychotic medication and that this had "made her almost comatose and caused her to fall, fracturing her spine".

The patient's daughter also alleged doctors delayed diagnosing the fracture, leaving her mother in pain.

The ombudsman's report said the trust's initial response to the daughter's complaint "did not acknowledge the poor care provided".

The investigation concluded that, while it was appropriate to give her the medication, she should not have had a second dose so quickly after the first one, especially as she was experiencing side effects.

"The prescription was for an unlicensed use of the medication, which is common and reasonable in psychiatry," says the report summary.

"Doctors should have given clear information about this to the woman.

"We could not say, however, that the medication caused the woman to fall.

"There was no delay in diagnosing the woman's fracture.

"The trust acknowledged and apologised for its failings and paid the woman £1,750 compensation."

It was one of 163 summaries of investigations published by the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman during October and November last year - 17 of which were based in the West Midlands.

The ombudsman service says a total of 41 per cent of the complaints it received during that time were upheld, which provided "clear and valuable" lessons for public services by showing what need to be changed.

Ombudsman Julie Mellor said: "These cases show the impact service failure can have on individuals and their loved ones.

"These case studies - which are a snapshot of our work - show the wide range of unresolved complaints we look at, many of which should be resolved the organisations locally, without people having to refer the complaint to us.

"Good complaint handling has to start from the top and leaders will recognise the valuable opportunities complaints provide to really improve the service they are delivering.

"Many people complain about public services to enable lessons to be learnt because they don't want the same thing to happen to somebody else."

Marsha Ingram, deputy chief executive of Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, said: “We take any complaint about our services very seriously and we have carried out a thorough investigation to identify what had taken place.

"We have carefully considered the additional recommendation made by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and, as a result, we have taken a number of steps to ensure this type of incident does not happen again, including improving our medicines management process and making some changes to the way we investigate complaints.”