Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

3. Miss Y complains about different events that happened during and after her father, Mr Y, was at the Trust in early November 2021.

4. Sadly Mr Y died while at the hospital. Miss Y says her father was not supposed to die and his death was avoidable. Miss Y says the lack of care and dignity shown to her father, herself and her family has caused them all long-lasting distress, affected their health and ability to grieve.

5. Miss Y would like those involved with her father’s care and treatment to be held responsible and disciplinary action to be taken against them. She also wants 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.

9. We do not base our decision on how successful legal action would be, but on whether legal action is or was a reasonable option for someone to take. We discussed this with Miss Y to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants.

10. Miss Y feels strongly that things went wrong with her father’s care, that staff actions have been hidden and that her father should not have died under the Trust’s care. Miss Y thinks these issues led to her father’s avoidable death.

11. This is something that can be looked at legally by making a clinical negligence claim. There is a three-year time limit for most clinical negligence claims. Miss Y is still within this time limit so has the option to take legal action.

12. Miss Y told us she has the contact details for a solicitor and plans to contact them. Miss Y did not say that anything was stopping her from doing this.

13. Miss Y told us that she and her mother do not feel the amount of compensation we could recommend would be enough to resolve their complaint. Legal action is more likely to achieve the amount of compensation they are looking for.

14. We cannot look into disciplinary action being taken against staff. Miss G could approach the Regulator directly, to take this further. These are the reasons why we are not continuing our investigation. We thank Miss Y for bringing her complaint to us.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Miss Y’s complaint about Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are not continuing our investigation because Miss Y could take legal action to resolve the complaint and we cannot achieve the outcomes she wants.

2. We understand how important this complaint is to Miss Y and we recognise how much the events affected her and her family.