Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mr H complains about the Trust’s treatment of Mrs A between 2 November 2020 and 17 January 2021. He complains the Trust: • did not manage her weight and it got worse during her stay • took two weeks to diagnose her broken knee.

4. Mr H complains the Trust’s failing to manage Mrs A’s weight resulted in her not being able to put weight back on, causing her life to be shortened. He says the Trust’s delayed diagnosis caused aggravation to her injury and delayed her recovery.

5. Mr H would like an independent clinical review into what happened.

7. 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. We have discussed this with Mr H to understand the reasons why he did not complain to us sooner.

8. Mr H complains about the care and treatment of his mother from the Trust between November 2020 and January 2021. We have thought carefully about when Mr H would have become aware of each issue he raises. This has allowed us to thoroughly consider our time limit for each issue.

9. Mrs A was discharged from hospital in mid-January 2021. She went to a care home at the beginning of February 2021 and sadly died in May 2021.

10. Mr H told us he was aware of these problems from the beginning of February 2021. Mr H believes Mrs A’s life was shortened because of the Trust’s poor treatment during her hospital admission.

11. We recognise Mr H came to us in March 2022 and we decided the complaint was not yet ready for us (complaint handling with the Trust had not been completed). At this point the complaint was one month out of time. By the time Mr H’s complaint was ready for us and he returned to our service it was 22 September 2022. This means his complaint was seven months outside of our time limit.

12. We explored the reasons for this delay with Mr H.

13. The Trust responded to Mr H’s first complaint on 9 November 2021. Mr H did not go back to the Trust with his further concerns until 23 March 2022. This is a four-month delay. The reason Mr H has given is that he was exploring his options and did not get round to it.

14. The Trust responded to Mr H for the second time on 16 May 2022. Mr H did not reply to the Trust until 6 September 2022. This is another four-month delay. The reason Mr H has given for the delay is the same as before.

15. Mr H did not tell us about any barriers that would have made it difficult for him to reply to the Trust quicker.

16. We do not consider the reasons Mr H has given for the delays to be strong enough for us to put our time limit to one side.

17. We do not underestimate how challenging Mr H’s experience has been for him. We hope we have clearly explained why his complaint is out of time and why we are not able to set our time limit aside.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mr H’s complaint about Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (The Trust). We recognise Mr H has been going through a difficult time and appreciate how the death of his mother, Mrs A, was so difficult. We are very sorry to hear about his experience and we offer our condolences.

2. We have decided the complaint falls outside of our 12-month time limit set by the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law). We think Mr H could have complained to us much sooner than he did so we have decided not to put our time limit to one side.