27. Section 9(4) of the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says a person needs to make their complaint to us within one year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do.
28. We first considered when Miss B became aware of her reasons to complain and whether her complaint was made to us in time.
29. It seems Miss B was unhappy with her care in December 2021. We think she would have been aware of her reason to complain in January 2022, when she says the Trust refused to consider the second opinion she had.
30. This means to be within our time limit Miss B needed to come to us by January 2023 at the latest.
31. She did not bring her complaint to us until 23 August 2023, seven months outside of our time limit.
32. Because of this we went on to consider if there are strong reasons why she could not complain to us sooner. We have discussed this with Miss B to understand her reasons.
Time taken for the Trust’s complaint handling
33. Miss B complained to the Trust on 5 August 2022, eight months after she says she was unhappy with the treatment offered and seven months after she says she got a second opinion which the Trust declined to consider.
34. The Trust held a meeting with Miss B on 5 September and provided its final response on 14 October, two months and two weeks after the complaint was received.
35. Miss B contacted the Trust again on 18 October. On 17 November, the Trust sent another response to Miss B, four weeks after the email was received.
36. Miss B contacted the Trust on 6 December to ask for another meeting. On 8 December, the Trust responded to ask her to complete a meeting pack.
37. Miss B sent the meeting pack to the Trust on 11 April 2023 and attended a meeting with the Trust on 22 May. The Trust sent a letter on 1 June, including the actions agreed with Miss B during the meeting.
38. We can see that overall the complaint handling took around five months, during which the Trust met with Miss B twice.
39. We have next considered Miss B’s reasons for delaying in progressing the complaint.
Reasons for delay
40. Miss B told us the delay between knowing there was a problem (in January 2022) and when she complained to the Trust one year and six months later (in August 2023) was because she had taken legal advice from many solicitors. She thought they would be a better first point of contact.
41. Miss B also told us she was hoping the Trust would provide the treatment she was asking for, or she would get compensation to allow her to pay privately. Miss B told us when she did not get what she wanted by using other channels, she came to us as a last resort.
42. We have considered Miss B’s reason for delay alongside the timeline of the events.
43. Firstly, we recognise this was an extremely difficult time for Miss B and we do not want to underestimate the significant impact this had on her. We have listened to Miss B’s reasons for the delay.
44. As above, the local complaints process initially caused around two months and two weeks of delay. We can also see an additional delay of around two months and two weeks after Miss B returned to the Trust because she was unhappy with the response.
45. We can see that when Miss B did complain to the Trust, it responded quickly including holding two meetings to review the complaints.
46. We can see other significant periods of delay (which seem to be caused by Miss B) that led to the complaint being out of time. These are:
• between becoming aware of the reason to complain in January 2022 and when she complained to the Trust in August 2023 (one year and six months) • between receiving the Trust’s final response in October 2022 and bringing the complaint to us in August 2023 (ten months).
47. For both of the above periods, Miss B told us the reason for her delay was because she had actively approached several solicitors and had continued to contact the Trust.
48. We can see she approached four solicitors between April 2022 and March 2023. Miss B also told us she had made enquiries with several other solicitors, the most recent being in January 2024.
49. It does not seem that these enquiries took a large amount of time. It seems Miss B failed to escalate her complaint to us after getting their responses. There also seems to have been a significant delay between Miss B receiving the final response and making enquiries with different solicitors. We do not think this is a strong enough reason for delay for us to put our time limit to one side for the whole period.
50. Miss B had use of an advocacy service from March 2022, who advised as early as April 2022 of the one-year timescale to make a complaint with the Trust. Miss B took a further six months from this time to complain.
51. Miss B told the Trust by email in September, October and December 2022 that she would bring her complaint to us if she did not get the outcome she was looking for. Miss B had also raised a complaint with us before.
52. The Trust advised in its response as early as October 2022 that if Miss B was unhappy she could escalate her complaint to us. It also advised there are time limits for taking a complaint to us.
53. We think Miss B would have been aware of our timescales and processes and known that she needed to bring her complaint to us quickly. But, she did not bring her complaint to us for some time.
54. We cannot see any clear reason why Miss B could not have brought the complaint to us sooner.
55. We recognise this will not be the decision Miss B was hoping for. We hope our statement sets out the careful consideration we have given to her reasons for delay.