Internal Reference Number: FOI_8627
Date Request Received: 06/05/2025 00:00:00
Date Request Replied To: 09/05/2025 00:00:00
This response was sent via: By Email
Request Summary: Hospital Discrimination
Request Category: Private Individuals
| Question Number 1: Could you please tell me for each of the years (a) 2022, (b) 2023 and (c) 2024 How many complaints through the patient advice and liaison system (PALS) your trust received from patients alleging they had been discriminated against or badly treated by a member of staff because of their being (i) overweight or obese, or (ii) a sexuality other than heterosexual. NOTE: In relation to the weight query please do this by searching for complaints containing any of the words "weight", "fat", "obese", "overweight" and "bariatric" and filtering these to find those that refer to fat-shaming comments made by a member of staff. Can you select the first five such complaints from 2024 for each category and provide me with the following details: 1. What type of staff member was the complaint levelled against? E.g. healthcare assistant, junior doctor, consultant, cleaner, kitchen staff 2. Please quote the words allegedly used by the hospital staff or summarise the offending action 3. Please tell me what, if any, action was taken by your trust in response to these sample complaints from the beginning of 2024. | |
| Answer To Question 1: No complaints have been received regarding discrimination against sexuality. (a) 2022 - 4 concerns regarding weight (b) 2023 - 4 concerns regarding weight (c) 2024 - 5 concerns regarding weight a. Nurse - reference made to my weight and being undersize when I suffered with anorexia - meeting held and nurse apologised to patient for language used. b. Doctor - Patient told to lose weight and if not, could not operate on them being that size - Doctor re-booked patient in for surgery and brought it forward. c. Doctor - "You need to stop eating to lose weight (pointed at her mouth to gesture eating) and it wont go on here (slapped her hips) - doctor phoned patient and apologised. d. Consultant - "I am not good enough to operate on a fat person like you. Response sent to patient, consultant disagreed that he used that language but apologised. e. Consultant - "The reason you cannot see clearly out of your eyes is because your face is too fat". The consultant denied that was the language they used but apologised. | |
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Our staff at SA国际传媒 Hospital have long been well regarded for the quality of care and treatment they provide for our patients and for their innovation, commitment and professionalism. This has been recognised in a wide range of achievements and it is reflected in our award of NHS Foundation Trust status. This is afforded to hospitals that provide the highest standards of care.
