8. 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 Mrs E to understand the reasons why she did not complain to us sooner. We have also considered the time the Trust has taken to respond to Mrs E’s complaint.
9. Mrs E confirmed she knew her reasons for the complaint when the Trust contacted her on 1 June 2021. The Trust confirmed on this date it would not provide Mr E with a letter of support for the funding of his treatment. Mr E had already been discharged from the service without a treatment plan on 16 April 2021. However, Mrs E was still under the impression they would get a letter of support for the funding.
10. We consider Mrs E’s date of knowledge for the complaint to be 1 June 2021. For the complaint to be within the time limit, Mrs E should have contacted our office by 1 June 2022.
11. Mrs E brought her complaint to us on 22 August 2022. The complaint is out of time by 11 weeks.
12. We have considered the reasons for the delays and the time it took for the Trust to complete its complaint procedure.
13. Mrs E complained to the Trust on 21 June 2021. The Trust provided its initial response to the complaint on 25 August 2021. This is a period Mrs E had no control over. For this reason, we will set the period from 21 June 2021 to 25 August 2021 to one side.
14. Mrs E followed up the complaint on 7 December 2021. This is approximately four months after the Trust provided its initial complaint response.
15. Mrs E says the reason for this delay was because her son’s problems were ongoing, and because he was on a waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) sessions at the time. We have considered this explanation carefully. We do not consider this is a strong enough reason to set our time limit to one side.
16. We appreciate Mr E was on a waiting list for CBT sessions, and this was clearly a distressing time. Mrs E knew she was unhappy about the Trust not providing a support letter for funding. There does not appear to be a practical barrier which prevented Mrs E from following up the complaint with the Trust sooner. We do not consider the length of the delay in the complaint being followed up to be reasonable.
17. The Trust provided its final response to the complaint on 17 May 2022. This is approximately five months after Mrs E’s follow-up complaint, and a period of time she had no control over. For this reason, we will set the period from 7 December 2021 to 17 May 2022 to one side.
18. The Trust’s final response included all the relevant information on how to contact us for an independent review. Mrs E brought the complaint to us on 22 August 2022. This is a delay of three months.
19. When discussing the reason for this delay with Mrs E, she initially confirmed she did not have a specific reason for the delay. Mrs E said she did not think it took her that long to bring the complaint to us. She explained she was going through a tough time with her son’s condition, and thought she had 12 months to bring the complaint to us from the date of the final response from the Trust.
20. We are very sorry to hear about the situation regarding Mr E’s condition, and we appreciate this was a very difficult time. Mrs E did not tell us about any change in her circumstances which meant she was then able to bring the complaint to us on 22 August 2022. As there appears to have been no change in her circumstances, it is difficult for us to conclude Mrs E could not have approached us sooner. The Trust’s final response signposted her to do this.
21. We appreciate Mrs E believed she had 12 months to bring the complaint to us after receiving the final response from the Trust. The Trust’s final response signposted her to bring the complaint to us and mentioned our time limit. We consider that if Mrs E was uncertain about this, she could have checked the information about our time limit on our website.
22. We have considered the time it took the Trust to provide its responses to Mrs E’s complaint. We have also carefully considered Mrs E’s circumstances and her reasons for the delays.
23. We consider Mrs E could have followed up the complaint with the Trust sooner after getting the initial response. We also consider she may have been able to approach us sooner after receiving the Trust’s final response. For the reasons we have explained, we have not seen good reasons to set aside our time limit. We will therefore be taking no further action on this complaint.
24. We recognise Mrs E’s complaint is important to her. We understand that our decision may be disappointing to Mrs E, and we are sorry to add any further distress.