The day after a man committed suicide, an NHS trust allegedly updated his records to "correct their mistakes.".
In 2017, the 33-year-old Charles Ndhlovu passed away while receiving care from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT).
The way his case had been handled, according to his mother Angelina Pattison, "upset me so much.".
The trust said learning from deaths was "vital," but it did not respond to the claim that the records were being added to.
According to a former CPFT employee, he brought up his worries about "possible criminal activity" with the trust.
Mr. Ndhlovu, who had a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis and a history of substance abuse, had been in the care of CPFT for two months when he passed away.
When he moved to Ely, he was transferred from a nearby trust, and he later had his community treatment order lifted.
Angelina Pattison, his mother, told the BBC that despite being actively involved in her son's care, she was "shocked that they transferred him without even telling me.".
A new care coordinator, according to Ms. Pattison, was only made aware of the day before she was scheduled to leave for Africa.
Her son passed away while she was away from the UK.
When he was transferred, no one from CPFT had inquired about whether his family had been involved in his care, according to a trust serious untoward incident (SUI) review.
"They didn't have any information about the address of [my home] in his care plan, and the care plan was completed when he passed away - when they were scrambling to fix their errors, which they have done," Ms. Pattison claimed.
"So it was actually something that really upset me. ".
Ms. Pattison filed a formal complaint with the trust while employed as a health care assistant by CPFT at the time.
The trust asked Des McVey, a consultant nurse and psychotherapist, to look into a complaint in July 2021; it is presumed that this complaint was made by Ms. Pattison. The BBC has separately spoken with Des McVey.
Mr. McVey stated: "I noticed that the deceased did have care plans, but they were created and evaluated the day after his death, and I was worried that this wasn't noticed by the SUI. ".
This, he said, "really alarmed me," and he continued, "Surprisingly, there was no care plan to address his suicidal ideation and he had. an extensive history of suicide attempts. ".
Additionally, he was troubled by the approach taken to look into potential racism by contrasting the death with two Caucasian suicides, which he claimed "demonstrated a poor understanding of the complexities of institutional racism.".
The SUI, according to Mr. McVey, "was not credible," and he was unable to complete the complaint investigation.
He claimed that he informed them of his belief that "the risk assessment was so noticeably incorrect, that they hadn't answered to why they'd taken him off the [community treatment order] against the advice of his current team.".
They "had drawn so many speculative inferences without any supporting evidence, and in some cases, contrary evidence," he claimed.
But according to Mr. McVey, nobody got in touch with him for six to seven weeks before he learned that the investigation had been assigned to someone else.
Although Mr. McVey left the trust in the beginning of 2022, he claimed that in June he spoke with the new CEO, Anna Hills, to express his concerns "that there was possibly criminal activity going on, falsification of documentation, and that the SUI was un-credible.".
He claimed that Ms Hills had promised to complete an investigation but that he has not received a response.
"I think that if everything worked well Charles' death was going to be preventable, because there were so many things," said Mr. Ndhlovu's mother, who is from Newmarket, Suffolk. to stop him from dying. ".
A coroner has previously criticized CPFT for being "not credible" and taking things at face value in relation to a serious untoward incident involving the death of James Nowshadi.
The review was "touched up" by others after a reference to Mr. Nowshadi's suicide method was removed, the co-author testified at the inquest.
How many seriously unfavorable incidents (SUIs) have been made by the trust, asked Mr. McVey, in reference to the need for an external audit of CPFT's SUIs.
A CPFT spokesman responded to the accusations by saying: "The death of Mr. Ndhlovu was tragic, and our continued condolences are extended to his family.
For us to be able to improve care, patient safety and the lessons learned from every death are crucial.
"While there was a delay in the investigation of a complaint made by Mr. Ndhlovu's mother, for which we sincerely apologize, those concerns were thoroughly investigated in 2022, and a further review was conducted by our director of nursing following concerns raised to the new CEO.
The review's lessons were crucial in helping us improve our procedures for handling complaints and incidents over the past year.
"Although there was no evidence of racial discrimination against Mr. Ndhlovu during his treatment, we take any allegations of bias in our procedures very seriously and will always thoroughly investigate any issues raised.
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