Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

4. Mrs O complains about the Trust’s care and treatment on 9 February 2022. Mrs O says she had surgery on her left eye and it went wrong. Mrs O also complains about the behaviour of the surgeon during her appointments, saying they were rude, aggressive and dismissive.

5. Mrs O says the sight in her left eye got much worse after surgery. She says she has lost confidence and no longer able to drive. Mrs O also tells us the surgeon who treated her caused her distress and made her feel like a child at follow up appointments. She asked to be transferred to another consultant ophthalmologist (eye doctor).

6. Mrs O would like an explanation of what went wrong with her surgery, an apology, service improvements and a financial payment.

7. On 7 May 2021 Mrs O’s eye surgeon from another hospital referred her to the Trust because she had moved. The other hospital had done a right eye trabeculectomy before. A trabeculectomy is a type of glaucoma surgery performed to make a new pathway for fluid inside the eye to be drained. Glaucoma is a common eye condition where the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain, becomes damaged. A left eye trabeculectomy had been planned but this was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

8. The Trust got the referral on 18 May and Mrs O was assessed on 3 August. The clinician noted Mrs O’s glaucoma was advanced in the left eye and she was referred to the surgical glaucoma consultant.

9. On 4 November, a consultant ophthalmologist specialising in glaucoma, assessed Mrs O and she agreed to having left eye trabeculectomy.

10. Mrs O’s surgery was done on 9 February 2022.

11. Mrs O was reviewed on 10 February. She had three pressure tests and these all showed she had no pressure in her left eye. Mrs O noticed her sight had got worse and she raised her concerns with the surgeon.

12. The next day Mrs O returned to the Trust for the stitches to be removed from her eye and was asked to come back in three months for a review. Mrs O was concerned about the dismissive behaviour of the surgeon.

13. On 17 March, the consultant ophthalmologist sent a letter to Mrs O’s GP to prescribe Ganfort eye drops for her left eye. Ganfort eye drops are used to lower raised pressure in the eye and to treat glaucoma.

14. Mrs O went to her optician on 8 April for an eye test. They told her that her left eye vision had got worse. The optician made an urgent referral by email to the acute ophthalmology clinic at the Trust.

15. Mrs O went to the clinic on 13 April complaining of blurry vision in her left eye. The ophthalmology doctor examined her, prescribed Ganfort eye drops and advised her to use these daily. She was discharged from the clinic.

16. The Trust sent a letter to Mrs O’s optician on 12 May explaining she may have high cylinder error. This happens when the optical power of the eye is too powerful or too weak. Examples are astigmatism, which is caused by an irregularly shaped cornea (the transparent part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil and anterior chamber). In an eye with astigmatism, light fails to come to a single focus point to produce clear vision. Instead, there are multiple focus points causing blurred vision.

17. Mrs O arranged for a private consultation with her old eye surgeon to try to find out what was causing the problems in her left eye. She also had consultations with another consultant ophthalmologist at the Trust because she did not want to be seen by the same doctor who had done the eye surgery.

18. On 27 September Mrs O contacted the Trust’s Patient Advice Liaison Team (PALS) to make a complaint about her surgery. The Trust sent a response in writing on 28 October 2022.

19. On 28 December Mrs O sent an email to the Trust escalating her complaint and the Trust sent its final response on 1 February 2023. Mrs O brought her complaint to us on 8 June.

22. The NHS guidance on complaining explains (section 7) that a complaint must be made no later than 12 months after the date the person knew they had a reason to complain. If a complaint is made after this and the NHS does not see a good reason to consider delays, it may not look at the complaint.

23. Similarly, the Law is clear that a complaint must be brought to us within one year from the date the person knew they had a reason to complain.

24. If a complaint comes to us outside of this time limit but the complainant has complied with the NHS complaints process timescales, this is an important factor when looking at whether we should put our time limit to one side or not.

25. To help us decide if there is good reason to put the time limit to one side, we look at each stage of the complaint and identify where there are delays.

26. Mrs O became aware of a problem on 10 February 2022, the day after her eye surgery. She complained to the Trust in a phone call on 29 September. This was 33 weeks later but within the NHS requirement to complain within a year.

27. The Trust responded to Mrs O in a letter dated 28 October. This was a delay of four weeks.

28. As Mrs O was not happy with the response from the Trust, she escalated her complaint on 28 December. This was a delay of eight weeks, but again it was within the NHS requirement to complain within a year.

29. The Trust sent a final response letter to Mrs O on 1 February 2023. This was a delay of five weeks.

30. Mrs O brought her complaint to us on 8 June 2023. This was a delay of 18 weeks from getting the second and final response.

31. Based on these dates, to meet our time limit Mrs O should have submitted her complaint to us by 10 February 2023. We got Mrs O’s complaint on 8 June 2023, 17 weeks later.

32. We looked at whether the time the Trust took to handle Mrs O’s complaint, caused a delay in her coming to us. Overall it took the Trust nine weeks to send two complaint responses to complete its complaints process. This is well within the timescales stated in the NHS Regulations 2009.

33. We do not think the Trust’s complaint handling caused any big delays or stopped her from coming to us sooner.

34. We spoke to Mrs O to better understand the reason for the delays in contacting the Trust to make her complaint. Mrs O explains she had spoken with the doctor who did the surgery at a follow up consultation and asked why her vision had got worse. Mrs O says the doctor said they did not know what was wrong and they could do nothing about it.

35. Mrs O says she then visited her local optician for an eye test and to see if she could find out what was wrong. She tells us the optician told her that her left eye vision had got worse and made an urgent referral to the acute ophthalmology clinic at the Trust.

36. Mrs O went to the clinic and was given eye drops as explained above.

37. Mrs O tells us she also arranged for a private consultation with her old eye doctor.

38. Mrs O says she did not know there was a timescale to complain to the Trust or us.

39. We can see that Mrs O was trying to find out what was wrong with her vision. She went to the Trust within the timescales explained in the NHS Complaints Policy.

40. When the Trust sent its final response to Mrs O on 1 February 2023 it directed her to us and gave details of how to bring a complaint to us. It also told her it was important to make a complaint as soon as possible because of our time limit.

41. Mrs O waited 18 weeks after getting the Trust’s final response before coming to us. This caused her complaint to be out of time.

42. We understand Mrs O was not aware of the timescales for making complaints, but we can see she was given information about our service.

43. Mrs O has given no other reasons to justify this delay.

44. We recognise Mrs O was concerned about her vision and she prioritised this after her surgery. If Mrs O had brought her complaint to us as soon as she got the final response from the Trust, we would have been able to consider it. We have not seen reasons to put the time limit to one side and cannot consider Mrs O’s complaint further.

1. Mrs O complains about the care and treatment Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (the Trust) gave to her. We are sorry to learn about the concerns Mrs O has since having eye surgery at the Trust.

2. We have carefully considered Mrs O’s complaint, but we cannot investigate it because she came to us outside of our 12-month time limit to make a complaint. We have not seen reasons to justify the delay and put the time limit to one side.

3. We recognise this will be disappointing for Mrs O and hope the information in this statement clearly explains the reasons for our decision.