North Bristol NHS Trust

3. Ms O complains about the care and treatment provided by the Trust between November 2009 and 2011.

4. She says that in November 2009 she was diagnosed with rectal cancer. The Trust performed a laparoscopic anterior resection operation and inserted a temporary catheter. She complains this was pulled out by the doctor whilst she was walking on the ward, and that after this incident she had a haemorrhage and had to have a stoma bag fitted.

5. She says between 2010 and 2011 she had two outpatient appointments for internal rectal examinations at the Trust. She complains she was not offered a chaperone and the doctor performing these examinations left her feeling traumatised by the way in which he examined her.

6. Ms O says she was left traumatised and could hardly walk after the catheter was pulled out. She also says she was left feeling scared after all the examinations she had.

7. She would like an apology and a financial remedy.

9. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so. We have discussed this with Ms O to understand the reasons why she did not complain to us earlier. We have also considered the time the Trust took to respond to Ms O.

10. We appreciate the time Ms O spent discussing her experience with us, and we were sorry to hear about what happened and how this affected her.

11. Ms O explained she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2009 and has had several operations and examinations since then. She explained at the time she was vulnerable and focusing on making a recovery.

12. In 2011, Ms O was diagnosed with lung cancer and had another operation. She says she could not complain at the time as she was suffering from ill health. Between 2011 and November 2017 she was in remission for cancer.

13. Ms O says in 2017 she began reflecting on the events which occurred in 2009 and 2010. She also began working again and is continuing to do so. Ms O explains she did not complain earlier as she finds it difficult to talk about the complaint. She also says she did not complain sooner due to ill health and living in trauma, and that she was having regular colonoscopies and the doctors were examining her every six months.

14. Ms O complained to the Trust on 18 June 2019 and it provided its final response on 29 April 2020. The Trust explained it had taken longer than expected to respond as it was dealing with a larger investigation into the actions of the doctor named in this complaint.

15. Ms O raised further concerns with the Trust on 9 and 20 May 2020 and the Trust responded to these on 24 June 2020.

16. Ms O brought her complaint to us on 22 September 2020.

17. Having thought carefully about everything, we think Ms O could have raised her complaint sooner. We understand she was going through a difficult time, but this alone is not enough to put the time limit to one side.

18. In 2017, she reflected on the events from 2009 to 2010. At this point her complaint was already eight years out of time and it took a further three years to complain to us in September 2020.

19. We are sorry to hear about the difficult experience Ms O had. It is not possible for us to justify putting the time limit to one side when the complaint is so far outside of the one year time limit.

20. To conclude, we will not take further action on this complaint. We made this decision considering all the challenges Ms O has faced and empathise with these. However, the complaint is at least 11 years outside of our one year time limit and we have not seen that there is a sufficient reason for us to put that to one side.

1. We have carefully considered Ms O’s complaint about North Bristol NHS Trust (the Trust). We were sorry to hear of the distress she experienced because of the events she complains about.

2. In relation to her complaints about her care and treatment between 2009 and 2011 for colon cancer, we have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit.