County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust

4. Mrs A complains the Trust provided conflicting information regarding her mother, Mrs O’s, death in September 2020. She complains when information about her mother’s death was provided via Data Subject Access Request (SAR), parts of the reports were redacted or withheld and not fully disclosed. Therefore, she was unable to view the full information she wanted to see.

5. Mrs A says no one seems to know what happened to her mother before she passed away. She says she has been unable to establish what happened the following day, during Mrs O’s time at the Trust. She says she had to wait for a month before they could arrange the funeral due to having to request a post-mortem. Mrs A says she has been unable to gain closure for her mother’s death, and these events have caused emotional distress. She has also had to take time off work and felt humiliated.

6. Mrs A would like an unredacted minute-by-minute breakdown of everything that happened to her mother between 6pm, when she last spoke with her, and the early hours of the following morning, when she died.

7. Following Mrs O being admitted to hospital, Mrs A spoke to her mother on the telephone at 6pm. In the early hours of the following morning, Mrs O sadly passed away. The hospital called Mrs A to advise her of her mother’s death shortly afterwards. Mrs A came to the hospital at 5am and asked to view her mother’s notes. She was advised by the senior registrar that they were still making notes and the records were not yet fully up to date, meaning Mrs A was unable to view them. Mrs A complained to the Trust.

8. In May 2021, Mrs A attended a local resolution meeting with the Trust where an action plan was put in place. Actions were agreed for each component raised in her complaint. In June 2021, Mrs A received a final response from the Trust which included a response to her complaint and a copy of the action plan agreed at the local resolution meeting.

10. Before we decide if we should investigate a complaint, we look at whether there is an organisation that is better placed to deal with the concerns. We have considered whether another organisation is better suited to giving an answer to the complaint and whether it can provide the outcome Mrs A seeks.

11. We do not consider whether an alternative organisation would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look into.

12. Mrs A’s complaint relates to conflicting information surrounding her mother’s death, and information about her mother’s death provided via Data SAR being redacted or withheld and not fully disclosed. Mrs A also told us she is seeking a minute by minute breakdown of everything that happened.

13. The complaint relates to data issues combined with Mrs A’s requested outcome of an unredacted minute by minute breakdown of events leading to her mother’s death. It appears reasonable for her to seek action from an organisation that is better placed to deal with her concerns.

14. Based on what Mrs A has told us, we consider the ICO would be better suited to consider the complaint and in deciding whether she could receive the outcome she is seeking.

15. The ICO is best placed to consider any missing or incorrectly redacted information from the SAR, and we are unable to investigate this in the same way. If successful, this route would be able to achieve the outcome Mrs A is seeking.

16. Mrs A has indicated in her telephone call to us that there are no barriers preventing her from taking this course of action. We have not identified any reason that would prevent Mrs A from doing this or taking further advice. We have not identified any circumstances or reasons why the ICO is not suitable in this case.

17. We consider that Mrs A’s complaint is better suited to the ICO. We will therefore take no further action on her complaint at this time. We hope she can get what she is seeking to address the significant impact these events have had on her and her family.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs A’s complaint about County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust).

2. We understand that the events Mrs A complains about are very important to her. We understand Mrs A has been distressed and upset because of what happened with her mother’s personal information, and she has lost confidence in the Trust because of the information it gave her.

3. Based on the evidence we have seen, and because of the outcome she wants, we have decided Mrs A could complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the data protection matter she has brought to us. We will explain the reasons for our decision in detail below.