Communication
11. The law says we can only investigate complaints that have been brought to us within one year of when the person became aware of a problem. We can put this time limit to one side, but only if we see good reason to.
12. During our first phone call, Mrs E confirmed the date she knew she had reason to complain was June 2021.This is when she got her son’s assessment letter telling her about his discharge from the service and the strategies that had not been shared with her.
13. Mrs E explained she had concerns from this time and found out information had been shared with his father but not her. She says she did not complain until January 2022 because from 2020 onwards she had been having issues with her neighbour’s anti-social behaviour. Mrs E could not explain how this affected her daily life or how it stopped her from bringing her complaint to us sooner. She said during this time she was experiencing anxiety which was ongoing since a domestic incident in January 2021. She says she has been constantly worried about her son’s wellbeing and started counselling for anxiety in October 2022.
14. We asked Mrs E what changed in her circumstances to allow her to complain to the Trust when she did in January 2022. She said at this time things are home were calmer so she felt able to.
15. We have seen evidence that Mrs E contacted us about ongoing complaints she had with other organisations between June 2021 and January 2022. She called our helpline to discuss these complaints several times during this period.
16. As Mrs E showed she was able to progress her other complaints at this time, we can see no reason why she could not have made her complaint to the Trust sooner. Had she felt the need, she could have got help from an advocate.
17. Mrs E added to the delay by leaving a six-month gap between getting the final response in August 2022 and bringing the complaint to us in February 2023.
18. Mrs E explained the reason for this second delay was a domestic incident in July 2022 and then there was a court case. She says the incident increased her caring responsibilities at home. She says the caring responsibilities took over her life and she was still experiencing anxiety and worry over her son’s care.
19. We asked what changed in her circumstances to allow her to bring the complaint to us when she did in February 2023. She said this is when the court case finished. She says once she felt her family were safe and protected, she was able to start her complaint. If we were to accept this as a good reason to put this delay to one side, the complaint would already be out of time because of the earlier six-month gap between June 2021 and January 2022.
20. Mrs E complained to the Trust on 13 January 2022 and it replied three months later. There was a meeting on 14 June before the Trust sent its final response on 30 August. The time taken for the Trust to handle the complaint is not key to our decision because the complaint was already outside our time limit when Mrs E complained to the Trust.
21. We have not seen good enough reason to put our time limit to one side. It is clear Mrs E has been through a difficult time. We are sorry to hear about what happened and the lasting impact this had on her.
Complaint handling and reasonable adjustments
22. Mrs E says the Trust sometimes kept to the agreement to send her letters on a green background so she could not read them properly, but other times it did not. We asked which letters she was sent that did not meet her request. She could not remember but showed us the Trust’s final response which has a white background.
23. We reviewed the complaint file the Trust sent. In the complaint form Mrs E sent to the Trust we can see she explained what reasonable adjustments she needed. The Trust’s acknowledgement letter and first response letters sent in January and April 2022 were sent on large font with a green background, but the final response was not in the same format. The notes from the meeting Mrs E had with the Trust do not show she raised any concerns about reasonable adjustments.
24. Mrs E did not send evidence of any other times when the Trust did not keep to her request. We contacted the Trust and it confirmed the first two letters (acknowledgment and first complaint response) were sent in line with Mrs E’s reasonable adjustments but it could not confirm that had been the case for the final response. It said it did not get any communication from Mrs E about this otherwise it would have resent the letter in her preferred format.
25. We can see the Trust met Mrs E’s reasonable adjustments for most of the complaints process but not when sending the final response. This was a one-off administrative error. We appreciate this would have been frustrating for Mrs E at the time.
26. We contacted the Trust and explained the outcome Mrs E wanted to resolve her complaint. The Trust agreed to send a letter apologising that it did not send its final response in line with her reasonable adjustments.
27. In line with our Principles we think this puts right what went wrong.
28. We recognise Mrs E experienced distress and we are sorry to hear about this. We hope Mrs E is reassured by our investigation and understands the reasons why we are taking no further action.