A practice in the Cornwall area

3. Miss A complains on behalf of herself and her mother, Mrs A, about the care and treatment the Trust gave her father (Mrs A’s husband), Mr A, in 2019 and about the information it gave the Court of Protection (a specialist court that makes decisions on financial or welfare matters for people who cannot make decisions at the time they need to be made).

4. They complain about the care and treatment the Practice gave Mr A in 2020. They also complain the Practice did not share information with the Court of Protection in 2019.

5. They complain about the care and treatment the Home gave Mr A between July and August 2020.

6. They say they have been left traumatised because Mr A did not get the care he needed. They say the organisations not sharing relevant information with the Court of Protection led to Mr A’s estate being charged £28,000.

7. Miss A and Mrs A were aware they were unhappy about the actions of the Trust in December 2019, about the Practice in November 2020 and about the Home in August 2020. We call these the ‘dates of knowledge’.

8. They made the complaint to the Trust in April 2022 and the Trust gave a full written response in September 2022. They made the complaint to the Practice in April 2022 and the Practice made responses in May and October 2022. They made a formal complaint to the Home in July 2022 and the Home replied that same month.

9. Miss A and Mrs A brought their complaints to us first in April 2022. At that point, the complaints were already outside our time limit, but Miss A and Mrs A had not had full answers to their concerns. We suggested they contact the organisations again as we expect organisations to have fully responded to matters complained about before they are brought to us.

10. Miss A came back to us on 7 October 2022 when she had received full responses from the organisations.

13. The law (the Act) 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. Miss A and Mrs A became aware they had reasons to complain between December 2019 and November 2020. This means when they first brought the complaints to us, they were between around five and 16 months outside our time limit.

15. We asked Miss A and Mrs A for more information about this to understand the reasons why they could not bring the complaints to us sooner.

16. Miss A tells us they did not want to complain sooner because Mrs A was terrified this would affect her own care. Miss A says she did not think it would be safe for her mother to receive care from the health organisation they believed had abused Mr A. We understand how upsetting and frightening it must have been for Miss A and Mrs A to think this.

17. In the written information Miss A sent us, she explains she has been traumatised by what happened and her mental health has suffered because of this. We understand how much the experience has affected her and we are sorry to read about this.

18. We do not consider these are reasons to extend our time limit. We think it would have been reasonable for Miss A and Mrs A to have made their complaints sooner or to have asked for an advocate (representative) to help them make the complaints. We have seen no evidence to show that making a complaint would adversely affect future care and treatment.

19. We think as Miss A and Mrs A were able to deal with court proceedings and instruct solicitors, they could also have started the complaints process sooner. This was a missed opportunity to keep the complaint inside the time limit.

20. We have also considered the time the organisations took to respond to the complaints.

21. NHS Complaints Regulations say organisations should complete an investigation and send the complainant a response within six months.

22. All three organisations did this. We have not seen anything to make us think the complaints went outside our time limit because of the time the organisations took to give written responses. This is because the complaints were already considerably outside our time limit when Miss A and Mrs A first made them.

23. For the reasons set out above, we have decided not to extend our time limit in this case.

24. We are very sorry to hear how upset Miss A and Mrs A have been and how the experience has affected them. It is clear it has been a very difficult time and we thank them for sharing the details. It is important we consider and act within the law and we are sorry for any further upset this decision may cause. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons why we will not be considering the complaints further.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Miss A and Mrs A’s complaints about Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust), a practice in the Cornwall area (the Practice) and a care home in the Cornwall area (the Home). The complaints are outside our time limit and we have decided there is no good reason for us to extend the time limit to consider them further.

2. We appreciate the time Miss A and Mrs A have spent making these complaints and recognise this decision will be disappointing to them. We explain in this statement the reasons for our decision.