British Pregnancy Advisory Service

3. Miss A complains that BPAS:

• gave her abortion medication in March 2021 without the right consultation • deliberately made few and incorrect so it could prescribe medication • gave a dismissive, unhelpful and poor response to her complaint to avoid legal procedures • used misrepresentation and pressure during counselling sessions about abortion.

4. Miss A says she has been struggling with severe emotional distress since March 2021 that includes depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and intense anxiety, affecting her daily life.

5. Miss A wants BPAS to take responsibility for its mistakes. She wants changes in BPAS policies to protect the well-being and rights of women going through such procedures. She wants financial compensation for the emotional distress and loss she experienced with the abortion.

7. The Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is unreasonable in the circumstances. We have spoken to Miss A to understand her circumstances and what she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look into.

8. Based on what Miss A has told us, we consider she could take legal action by making a clinical negligence claim.

9. Miss A wants financial compensation for the harm to her wellbeing and the effect on her life. She looked at our severity of injustice scale (a tool we use to look at how badly someone has been affected and what level of payment we would be likely to recommend to put this right) and she said she felt level six was right for her situation. Level six means we would recommend a financial payment of around £10,000. Miss A told us she does not think this would be enough.

10. We think it would be best for Miss A to try to get the amount she wants by taking legal action. This is important because she wants a large payment and a court can normally award a larger amount than us, if it finds clinical negligence.

11. We spoke to Miss A about legal action, she said she had thought about it and would take legal action if she needed to. She thought she had to contact us before asking for legal help.

12. We asked Miss A if there is anything that would stop her from taking a legal route. She said there was nothing to stop her from making a legal claim. It would be right for Miss A to look into legal action fully to hopefully achieve what she is looking for. Miss A is still within the three-year time limit to make a legal claim and we do not want her to miss this opportunity.

13. We have advised Miss A on where she can find more information about the legal process. If she is not able to take legal action, she can contact us again and we will look at if we can investigate. We cannot look at issues that a court has already made a decision on.

14. If Miss A contacts us again, we need to look at our time limit. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the problem. We can put the time limit to one side if we can see good reason for any delay.

1. We have carefully considered Miss A’s complaint about the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

2. We are sorry to hear about Miss A’s experience and how this affected her. We are not investigating this further because we think Miss A should look into taking legal action.