South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

3. Ms H complains about the deliberate intent, lack of care, forced medication and negligence she experienced from the Trust between 2008 to 2014.

4. She complains she was deliberately moved into a block of flats so she would be intimidated verbally, physically attacked and racially discriminated against by other misogynistic (strongly prejudiced against women) residents and their family members.

5. She complains she was wrongly detained for six weeks under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act to receive treatment in hospital and was prescribed forced medication by injection.

6. Ms H says this affected her reputation and caused a loss of earnings.

7. Ms H wants an apology and a financial payment from the Trust.

8. Ms H told us she became aware she has reasons to complain about the Trust’s actions in 2012. She explained similar issues carried on until 2014.

9. She complained to the Trust on 5 July 2022 because she says they were jointly responsible for placing her in the flat. She complained about being given forced medication, which she says should never have happened and the continued prescribing of this medication.

10. The Trust sent a response on 6 August 2022. It explained it could not investigate her complaint about her care due to the time that had passed.

11. Ms H complained to us on 5 December 2023.

13. The Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we think there is a good reason to. We discussed this with Ms H to understand the reasons why did not come to us sooner. We also considered the time the Trust took to respond to her complaint.

14. The Trust explained that due to the time that had passed since the events complained about (she complained in 2022 about what happened from 2008 to 2014), it was outside of its time limit to investigate and it would not be possible to review and respond to her concerns under the NHS Complaints process. It provided her with information of other organisations that may be able to help.

15. Ms H raised a number of concerns about her experience with the Trust. It was difficult to clearly establish when the events complained about happened, so we contacted Ms H to find this out.

16. Ms H told us she knew she had reason to complain ‘when she was incarcerated in 2012’. This refers to when she moved to the flats. This means it is reasonable to say 2012 is when Ms H knew there was a problem. She says her concerns continue to this day.

17. This means she had until 2013 to complain to us. Ms H complained to us in December 2023, ten years later.

18. We considered her reasons for delay and whether there are strong enough reasons to put the time limit to one side. We first looked at what happened between Ms H becoming aware of her concerns, her complaint to the Trust in July 2022 and her complaint to us in December 2023.

19. Ms H explained she was not aware she could complain before.

20. We recognise she may not have known about the Trust’s complaint process or our service at first. But, we can see the Trust’s response gave Ms H our contact details if she was still unhappy with its response. We did not get a complaint from Ms H until December 2023, this shows she was aware she could complain to us and still took her one year and four months to come to us.

21. We note the Trust itself said the complaint was outside the 12-month time limit set in the NHS Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 and this is why it could not investigate. This supports our decision that it would be difficult for us to investigate so many years after the events.

22. Overall, we would expect people to make reasonable attempts to complain as soon as they have a reason to complain. We have not seen strong enough reasons to allow us to put the time limit to one side.

23. We are sorry to hear about Ms H’s experience. We hope this statement clearly explains our decision and does not bring Ms H any further upset.

1. We have carefully considered Ms H’s complaint about South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are very sorry to hear about Ms H’s experience and the difficulties she faced.

2. Ms H’s complaint falls outside of our legal time limit and we have not seen strong reasons for us to put our time limit to one side. We think Ms H could have complained to us sooner than she did.