Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mr J complains about the care the Trust gave to his wife after she was admitted in August 2021. He says the Trust: • took too long to check her platelets, urea and electrolytes after deciding this was needed on 17 August • took too long to do an MRI scan on 18 August because it lost the completed consent form • did not tell him his wife had deteriorated, that she had been diagnosed with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP, a rare blood disorder), or that she was being transferred to another hospital for urgent treatment • did not treat his wife in line with the advice from the other hospital • did not identify how confused and disoriented his wife was during a remote and a face-to-face review • did not tell the other hospital that his wife had an MRI scan • took too long to transfer his wife to the other hospital.

4. Mr J says his wife died within hours of leaving the Trust’s care. He believes its delays and poor communication meant she lost the opportunity to have the life-saving treatment she needed and she developed a bleed on her brain.

5. Mr J would like the Trust to acknowledge it did not give his wife the best chance of survival and explain how it has improved its service. He would also like it to make a financial payment to him.

6. Mrs J attended the Trust’s emergency department on 16 August 2021. The Trust did tests to find out what was causing her symptoms. Mrs J was scheduled to have an MRI scan on 17 August but it did not go ahead until the next day.

7. The Trust thought Mrs J had TTP and arranged for her to be transported to another hospital for treatment. Sadly, shortly after her transfer, Mrs J died. Mr J complained to the Trust about his wife’s care.

8. We are investigating the Trust and not the hospital that Mrs J was transferred to.

10. 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 in the circumstances. We have discussed this with Mr J to understand his circumstances and the outcomes he wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

11. Mr J’s main concern is the clinical care and treatment his wife was given. He believes shortcomings in the care his wife received may have led to her death. A financial payment is one of the outcomes Mr J would like us to recommend. This suggests he could consider making a clinical negligence claim.

12. Mr J was unsure at first about how much money he wanted. We gave Mr J information about our approach to recommending financial payments. We explained the amounts we typically recommend when we find very serious avoidable harm, as set out in our ‘severity of injustice scale’. The amount is between £10,000 and £15,000.

13. After discussing this further, the amounts we typically recommend seem to be much lower than what Mr J is hoping to achieve. We shared resources with Mr J about finding free legal advice. There did not seem to be anything stopping Mr J from looking into this. Mr J is in the process of contacting a solicitor. It seems in Mr J’s best interests to explore this further.

14. There are time limits for making legal claims and a court could award higher levels of financial payment than we can. Legal action can sometimes achieve other outcomes as a by-product of any decision that is made. This could include the service improvements Mr J is looking for.

15. In summary, legal action seems to be a reasonable option for Mr J to explore. We are unable to keep the case open while he gets advice. This is why we are taking no further action on this complaint.

16. If Mr J is unable to take legal action or the court does not look at all the outcomes he wants, he may decide to bring his complaint back to us. If that happens, we will need to consider our time limit, so it is important that he returns to us quickly. We will also check how far he got with the legal process to understand why he has returned to us.

17. We recognise how significantly Mrs J’s death affected Mr J and his family. We are sorry for their loss and hope this statement clearly explains our reasoning.

1. We have carefully considered Mr J’s complaint about Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are sorry to hear his concerns about the care his wife, Mrs J, received before she sadly passed away.

2. We think Mr J could take legal action on the matter he has brought to us. As we have explained in this statement, we have decided not to consider the complaint further.