Case Summaries

The student also made an allegation within their complaint that they had experienced harassment during one of their placements.

The student complained to us because they were unhappy with the provider’s decision not to uphold their complaint, and because they felt that the provider had dealt with their allegation of harassment inappropriately. We partly upheld the student’s complaint (we decided it was Partly Justified). We decided it was reasonable for the provider not to uphold the student’s complaints about their reasonable adjustments and delays to their graduation and NMC registration. But we upheld the student’s complaint about the way the provider dealt with their allegation of harassment.

The student made the allegation in their stage one complaint but later told the provider they didn’t want to pursue it. However, the provider had an ongoing relationship with the placement organisation and decided that it needed to investigate the allegation further to ensure the welfare of other students on placement. The student wasn’t notified that the provider was carrying out this investigation.

We acknowledged that the provider needed to carefully balance the wishes of the individual student with the safety and wellbeing of other students on placement. But it would have been good practice to tell the student what actions it was taking and why. We recommended that the provider formally apologise and offer the student £750 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the allegation.