George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust

2. Mrs O complains about the care and treatment her husband, Mr O, received from the Trust between 18 June 2020 and 14 September 2021. She says the Trust failed to admit him on 18 June and delayed doing an endoscopy (a test to look inside the body using a camera attached to a thin tube) until 13 July 2020. She says the Trust delayed giving chemotherapy. She also says it failed to monitor the progress of ascites (abnormal build-up of fluid in the abdomen) and to give the correct treatment between 24 May 2021 and 7 September 2021.

3. As a result of the delays in diagnosing and treating stomach cancer, Mrs O says the cancer spread and Mr O was not able to have surgery to remove it. She says Mr O was denied the chance of survival. She says watching his condition get worse and being unable to ease his anxiety is a haunting memory, which will stay with her forever.

4. As a result of the failure to monitor the progress of ascites, Mrs O says Mr O was in tremendous pain for an extended period of time. She says the excessive build-up of fluid put pressure on Mr O’s internal organs which caused indescribable pain and discomfort. His abdomen was swollen and he had great difficulty breathing. He was unable to swallow and could not eat or drink.

5. Mrs O says she suffered great distress as she felt helpless having to watch Mr O in such a great deal of pain, knowing there was nothing she could do to help.

6. Mrs O would like service improvements to prevent future patients suffering unnecessarily, an apology and financial compensation.

8. The law says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances. We have discussed this with Mrs O to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look into.

9. We consider Mrs O could take legal action on the matter she has brought to us because of the seriousness of the claimed failings and the impact she says they had. Mrs O has not said how much financial compensation she wishes to achieve but has said it is level six on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s severity of injustice scale.

10. Mrs O explained she hopes her complaint will bring service improvements. She says she feels bitter with the way they treated Mr O and, at times, did not treat him. She says if she took the legal route, there would be no guarantee that future cancer sufferers would not experience the pain and anxiety Mr O did.

11. We explained a successful legal claim against an organisation can cause it to take to prevent the issues happening again. However, if Mrs O is unhappy with the outcome of legal action, she could ask the Ombudsman to consider any outcomes the court could not achieve.

12. Mrs O did not give any reason why she would be unable to explore legal action.

Mrs O says there is no reason she cannot contact a solicitor.

13. For these reasons, we are not taking further action on the complaint, to allow Mrs O to pursue legal action.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs O’s complaint about George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (the Trust). We are very sorry to hear about the sad events experienced by Mrs O and her family and recognise the distress these caused. We consider Mrs O could take legal action on the complaint she has brought to us. For this reason, we have decided not to consider Mrs O’s complaint further.