South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mrs R complains about the care and treatment her daughter, V, received from South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) when she presented at A&E after an accident in August 2019. Mrs R says the Trust did not offer her daughter an X-Ray because of her age, being three years old at the time, and this resulted in a missed opportunity to spot and remove glass from her hand. Mrs R says some weeks later (October 2019) it was confirmed her daughter had glass in her hand, and at this point the clinicians advised it was unsafe to remove it due to potential complications.

4. Mrs R feels the glass could have been removed if staff had fully assessed her daughter’s injury and identified it earlier. She is now concerned about the long-term effects of the glass remaining in V’s hand.

5. Mrs R wants an acknowledgement of the failings that occurred, and a review of what happened to prevent it happening in future.

7. 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 there is a good reason. We have discussed this with Mrs R to understand the reasons why she could not bring her complaint sooner. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to respond to Mrs R.

8. In October 2019 the Trust informed Mrs R that her daughter had glass in her hand. This is reasonably the date Mrs R was aware of the matters she complains about, so to be within the time limit she needed to approach us by October 2020.

9. Mrs R complained to the Trust on 27 November 2019, and The Trust responded in April 2020. In that response, the Trust asked Mrs R to contact it if she wished to meet or to discuss her complaint further. Mrs R responded to that letter in September 2020. At this point a period of six months had passed between the response and Mrs R returning to the Trust with further questions. Had Mrs R responded sooner she may have been in time to approach us within our time limit.

10. The Trust sent a further letter to Mrs R in February 2021 and signposted her to us. Mrs R approached us in March 2021. Therefore, the complaint is five months out of time.

11. We asked Mrs R why she had not pursued her complaint between April and September 2020. She told us she had been waiting for a consultant to return her calls as she wanted answers from them. There is no indication the Trust signposted Mrs R to contact a consultant to progress her complaint, although we understand she was looking for answers as she was concerned for her young daughter’s health.

12. Mrs R was able to pursue her complaint with the Trust up to April 2020, and again in September 2020. We have seen no reason she could not progress her complaint between those dates, and not doing so meant the complaint went beyond our time limit. Without sufficient justification for the delay there are no grounds to put the time limit to one side. For that reason, we will not take any further action on this complaint.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs R’s complaint about South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit.

2. We considered the time it has taken Mrs R to approach us with her concerns. We have considered her explanations for any delays, and the time it took for the Trust to respond. We appreciate how worried she was about any long-term impact on her daughter’s health, as a result of her injury.