4. Mrs R complains that following a hip replacement operation on 2 June 2018 at the Hospital, she is still experiencing pain, is unable to walk without resting, and needs to take pain killers.
5. Mrs R states that she is unable to engage in everyday activities and hobbies as expected.
6. Mrs R would like further investigation, X-rays, physiotherapy, and further treatment, so she can pursue everyday activities and hobbies.
Ongoing hip pain and limited mobility
8. 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 Mrs R to understand the reasons why she could not bring her complaint to us within 12 months. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to respond to Mrs R.
9. Mrs R had a hip replacement operation on 2 June 2018. She had a number of appointments to try and address the ongoing pain following the operation, up to September 2019, when she was still in considerable pain and was unable to sleep at night.
10. By September 2019, over a year after her operation, the pain had worsened, and she says she became aware the operation had not achieved what it should have. We accept that until that point Mrs R was looking to resolve the pain with her doctors. That means to be within our time limit she needed to complain to us by September 2020. Following the completion of local resolution, she did not approach us until March 2021, six months after our time limit period of 12 months.
11. Mrs R first complained to PHSO 30 months after her surgery took place, in December 2020, when we declined to consider the complaint. She says she had complained to the Hospital on 26 September 2019, but there is no record of this.
12. The evidence Mrs R has provided shows she first raised her complaint with the Hospital in January 2021, 16 months after she became aware of the matters. By this point, the complaint was already beyond our time limit by four months.
13. Mrs R submitted a complaint to the Hospital on 07 January 2021, and she received a final response from them on 19 March 2021, meaning local resolution took approximately two and a half months.
14. We considered the reason for the delay to see if there were any exceptional circumstances which should be taken into account when deciding if our 12 month time limit should be set aside.
15. During telephone calls with Mrs R, she told us she had worked hard to follow the advice she was given by doctors to ensure the best clinical outcome. She said she was concerned when she found out an orthopaedic surgeon was suspended in 2019, but she did not complain at that time as she did not know it was necessary. Mrs R said she received steroid injections and had physiotherapy appointments in 2019 which relieved her symptoms. We can see how Mrs R has continued to seek treatment for her pain and symptoms but cannot see that this prevented her from complaining sooner than she did.
16. Mrs R also told us she was unaware of the complaints process. She said the Hospital letter dated 19 March 2021, advised her that she could contact the PHSO if she was not satisfied with the Hospital's response to her complaint. She stated this was the first occasion the Hospital had brought this to her attention. Mrs R first contacted PHSO in December 2020, so she was able to contact us before the Hospital’s letter.
17. Although Mrs R may not have known about the complaints procedure, it is clear she was able to find the information on how to complain to us in December 2020, and we have seen no reason why she could not have located that information, or made a complaint to the organisation, much sooner.
18. Mrs R also told us the COVID-19 restrictions limited her ability to complain to us sooner. Mrs R’s date of knowledge was six months before the national lockdown commenced, and as she did not attempt to raise a complaint during the national lockdown, we have not seen that this had an impact on her ability and opportunity to complain.
19. Restrictions applied equally to all complainants and would not, on their own, be grounds to set aside the time limits for such a significant period.
20. We have considered the reasons Mrs R has given for the delay but do not consider that they justify setting aside our time limit. Our view is that she could have contacted us sooner. As such, we have decided to not to set our time limit aside.
21. It is clear from Mrs R’s account she has been through a difficult time and has ongoing pain and mobility issues. We appreciate that she may not have researched how to formally complain before December 2020. Unfortunately, that is not a reason for us to put our time limit to one side.
1. We have carefully considered Mrs R’s complaint about a hospital in the Essex area (the Hospital). We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit.
2. We consider Mrs R could have complained to the organisations much sooner than she did, and as such we have decided not to put our time limit to one side.
3. We understand that Mrs R has been through a difficult time, with prolonged pain and limited mobility, and we appreciate the disappointing outcome of her surgery has meant she cannot engage in activities she expected to.