My brother passed away 5 weeks ago. He lived in a nursing home due to being paralysed in an accident a number of years ago. He was due to step down into assisted living.
He had severe heart failure but this was being managed well with medication and he was well.
He was admitted to hospital in the early hours of the Friday morning. The home called to say he had been taken in as he had low oxygen and he was being sick.
I live quite a distance away so was in contact with the hospital all day on the Friday with the aim of travelling down the Friday night.
He was hugely constipated and had to have an enema, he was responding well to oxygen and anti sickness medication and was being given a dose of antibiotics.
As I'd been awake all night after the nursing home call we decided to travel first thing Saturday and dh would drive.
He passed away first thing Saturday morning.
Assuming it was related to his heart failure we started to do all the stuff that needs doing when someone died.
However, he didn't die due to his heart failure. He died of sepsis following a massive kidney infection.
The home never mentioned he had a kidney infection or any kind of infection or that he had been severely constipated as any of these would have been obvious at this point. He lived in a home with nursing and was undergoing extra checks due to his heart failure (as due to his paralysis some of the more obvious worsening symptoms wouldn't be immediately clear).
The coroner has opened an inquest but we have been told that he will just be looking at the medical facts and may not consider our queries regarding his care.
Since clearing his things we have found copies of safeguarding investigations relating to medical attention not being sought quickly enough last year, carers dropping him out of his chair and carers asking to borrow money from him amongst others. Only the first has a conclusion where they were found to not be at fault but to me, this paints a pattern of poor care and I have passed this to the coroner, the council and the cqc.
However, I would like to request the missing outcomes from the above and his daily and medical notes from the week leading up to his death from the home and the incident report from his being admitted.
But, can I actually ask for this? It won't change anything and am I ultimately just trying to assuage my own guilt?