Northern Care Alliance NHS Group

3. Mr I complains about the care and treatment his wife and their son received at the Trust in December 2003, during Mrs I’s labour and their baby’s birth. Specifically, he complained the Trust:

· provided unsupervised and prolonged labour

· gave Mrs I an overdose of spinal injection anaesthesia without considering the levels of anaesthesia it had already administered given the supervision of an obstetrician and gynaecologist

· gave Mrs I an overdose of epidurals

· did not diagnose hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) with an early magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) despite all the symptoms

· did not give an explanation or a diagnosis in Mrs I’s and their son’s discharge summary.

4. Mr I says the overdose of spinal injection resulted in Mrs I and their son developing respiratory compromise (a deterioration in respiratory function), leading to Mrs I having a high spinal block (a procedure that numbs nerves to give pain relief in specific areas of the body).

5. Mr I explained his son was born with flat baby syndrome (plagiocephaly and brachycephaly) and later developed learning difficulties including his speech and comprehension. Mr I says his son did not get a full-time school initially, now has a special education plan and does not enjoy a social life. Mr I says his son has not had a diagnosis despite seeing doctors and psychologists.

6. Mr I would like a full explanation of his concerns, and an apology and compensation for his son’s future as outcomes.

9. The law says a person needs to bring their complaint to us within a year of them 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 discussed this with Mr I to understand the reasons why he could not do so. We also considered the time the organisation took to respond to Mr I.

10. Mr I explained different doctors, psychologists and other health professionals examined his son. However, he says they are unable to provide a diagnosis for his son’s learning difficulties, significant speech delays and comprehension problems. Mr I said this ‘triggered him’ to think his son’s health concerns related to the Trust’s care and treatment in 2003.

11. Mr I believed he was in time with his complaint, as he had complained to the Trust in 2018 and received a response on 8 December 2018. He wrote to the Trust detailing extensive research he had done around his wife and son’s care. He said he tried to contact related Royal (Trust) colleagues as well. He explained this took considerable time to collate.

12. Mr I’s complaint is about the care and treatment received in 2003. It is clear he had concerns relating to the labour and birth at the time and could have complained then. We consider the date Mr I had notice to complain as 2003. Based on the information Mr I has provided, we do not consider there are good reasons to set the time limit to one side. It does not appear there were any significant barriers to Mr I approaching us at an earlier point. Therefore, we will not be able to take any further action on Mr I’s complaint.

13. Our decision is not intended to diminish the effect the issues have had on Mr I and his family. We are deeply sorry to learn of the events Mr I has explained. We recognise from Mr I’s account this has been an extremely distressing and challenging time for his family. We appreciate he did not think about complaining at the time.

1. We have carefully considered Mr I’s complaint about the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust (the Trust), known in 2003 as the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. The complaint falls outside of our time limit. We consider that Mr I could have complained to the organisation sooner than he did. So, we have decided not to put our time limit to one side.

2. We were sorry to learn about Mr I’s concerns about the Trust. We understand Mr I and his family have been through a challenging time.