A dental practice in the Leicestershire area

4. Ms E complains after an extraction of two teeth on 1 March 2021 the Practice:

• left her with a broken jaw due to excessive force used during the tooth extraction • failed to diagnose her broken jaw despite multiple return visits in March 2021 • delayed her referral to secondary care • provided inadequate pain relief and • failed to identify an infection and provide antibiotics.

5. Ms E says the Practice breaking her jaw and providing inadequate pain relief left her in significant unnecessary pain until the hospital saw her and diagnosed osteomyelitis (inflammation of the bone) on 7 April 2021. Ms E believes if the Practice had referred her sooner, her situation could have been more treatable and the infection could have been controlled much sooner. She says this affects her daily. She now struggles to eat certain foods and cannot go outside if it is cold because the pain gets unbearable. She cannot lie on her left side or play with her children because the pain is too great. Ms E tells us the pain disrupted her sleep and she was admitted to hospital with chest pains because of anxiety.

6. Ms E would like an apology and financial compensation.

9. 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. We have discussed this with Ms E to understand why she could not come to us sooner. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to respond to Ms E.

10. Ms E told us following her appointment on 1 March 2021 she agreed to the extraction of two teeth. We do not think this was the date she became aware of the problem. We consider she was unaware she had reason to complain until 7 April 2021. This is when the maxillofacial unit at her local hospital (a unit specialising in head, neck and jaw problems) diagnosed a broken jaw. Therefore, to be inside our time limit, she would have had to approach us by 7 April 2022. She did not approach us until 10 May 2022, so her complaint is outside our time limit.

11. Ms E complained to NHS England on 30 June 2021, almost three months after she became aware of the problem. NHS England responded on 30 September, so local complaint handling took only three months.

12. Ms E says she consulted with a solicitor on 12 April 2021. She says this consultation was ongoing until 23 February 2022 when the solicitor told her, due to the low chance of success, they were dropping the case.

13. Ms E did not have an explanation for the delay between 23 February, when the legal claim ended, and 10 May, when she first approached us. This is a delay of two months and 17 days. She did not have an explanation for why she did not approach us following NHS England’s response in September 2021.

14. We can see from the NHS England response dated 30 September 2021 that Ms E was aware of our service and could have approached us much sooner than she did. We can therefore see no good reason why Ms E brought the complaint to us outside our time limit. As such we will not consider the complaint further.

15. Our decision is not intended to detract from the very real and difficult experience Ms E has been through. We know this has been an incredibly difficult time for her.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Ms E’s complaint about a dental practice in the Leicestershire area (the Practice). The complaint falls outside our time limit and we have decided there is no good reason for us to put our time limit aside to consider it further.

2. Ms E chose to pursue her complaint as a legal claim in the first instance. Her solicitor told her they were not taking the case further on 23 February 2022. At this point the complaint was still within our time limit to consider, but Ms E did not approach us until 10 May 2022, without a reasonable explanation.

3. We are sorry to hear about what happened to Ms E when she had her teeth extracted. The complications which arose have clearly led to a very difficult situation for her.