Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

4. Miss D complains about aspects of the care and treatment her father Mr D received from the Trust between 2015 and 2018.

5. Miss D says her father was treated by the urology department for three years before he was investigated for cancer. She says her father’s prostate cancer should have been diagnosed sooner.

6. Specifically, Miss D says a rise in prostate specific antigen and other abnormal blood test results were not acted on and no biopsies of the prostate were taken. She says Mr D was treated for his symptoms inappropriately with antibiotics when further investigations should have been done.

7. Miss D says Mr D suffered from pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance and urinary problems. She says if the cancer had been diagnosed earlier, it may have been treatable before it spread, and Mr D may not have died.

8. Miss D also complains the Trust closed Mr D’s complaint without responding to the questions he asked in his complaint letter from January 2019. She says this meant the family were left without answers to their questions about why the cancer had not been diagnosed earlier.

9. Miss D wants an acknowledgement of failings, service improvements and a financial remedy for the pain and distress caused to Mr D and their family.

10. Mr D attended the Trust’s urology clinic for three years. In December 2017 he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer which had spread to his bone, lymph nodes and lungs.

11. Mr D sadly died in February 2021.

13. 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.

14. We have discussed this with Miss D to understand the reasons she could not bring her complaint sooner. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to address this complaint.

15. Miss D and her family became aware of the problem in January 2018. Mr D first raised his concerns with the Trust shortly after his cancer diagnosis.

16. The Trust sent written responses to Mr D in May and August 2018. Following this, it arranged two local resolution meetings with Mr D and his family, in October and November 2018. The Trust promptly sent minutes from those two meetings to Mr D. We cannot see any delays on the part of the Trust in handling the complaint.

17. Mr D’s last correspondence with the Trust about the complaint was in January 2019. In this letter he made comments on the minutes of the local resolution meeting from November 2018, and said the meeting was the first time he had met the prostate nurse. He asked if the Trust provided Macmillan nurses or similar support for prostate cancer patients. He also asked for a copy of the amended minutes for the previous local resolution meeting.

18. The Trust responded a week later, enclosing a copy of the amended minutes as requested. It said that someone would be in contact regarding support for Mr D.

19. There was no further complaint activity until Miss D complained to the Trust in March 2021. This was over two years after the last complaint correspondence. Miss D says this is when she became aware that her father’s complaint had been closed.

20. The Trust had responded to the two questions asked in Mr D’s letter of January 2019. In its response to Miss D in April 2021, the Trust explained why it believed the complaint had been closed. The Trust apologised for assuming the complaint was resolved. The Trust explained it was unaware of the outstanding concerns until Miss D contacted them.

21. Miss D contacted us in May 2021. This was over three years after she and her parents became aware of the problem.

22. Miss D’s complaint was made outside of our time limit. We have considered whether we should exercise our discretion and look at her complaint outside of that time limit.

23. Miss D says her father’s diagnosis came as a complete shock to the whole family. As his illness progressed Mr D struggled mentally and physically. By 2019 Mr D had no motivation to continue the complaints process. We recognise how difficult an unexpected diagnosis can be and we were sorry to see how it impacted Miss D and her family.

24. The family decided at this point to use their time and energy to support Mr D, rather than to continue the complaints process. Miss D says this is why nobody contacted the Trust to chase up a response to his letter of January 2019.

25. Between January 2019 and March 2021, none of the family members, including Miss D, were pursuing the complaint. Mr D had chosen to stop involvement in the complaint process during this time.

26. Overall, we do not think Miss D’s reasons justify the extent of the two year delay in the complaints process. We recognise that Miss D and her family experienced a very difficult and distressing time during those two years, and we have taken this into account.

27. We are not going to put our time limit to one side. We appreciate this was not the decision Miss D was hoping for. We hope we have clearly explained our reasons for this.

1. We have carefully considered Miss D’s complaint about the Trust. We thank Miss D for taking the time to share her concerns with us.

2. The law says people have a 12 month time limit to ask us to look into their complaint, after they become aware of the problem. Miss D’s complaint was brought to us outside of our time limit.

3. We have considered whether we should use the discretion the law gives us and look at her complaint outside of the time limit, but we do not think we should. We understand Miss D may be disappointed by our decision after the difficult experience she and her family endured.