Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust

3. Mr A complains that staff at the Trust did not treat his brother properly. He thinks they did not monitor him properly or give him the treatment he needed. He thinks this led to his brother’s death. Mr A wants the Trust to admit to medical negligence and apologise to his family. He wants the Trust to make a large payment to him.

4. Doctors admitted Mr H to the Trust in early October 2020. They transferred him to intensive care because he was seriously unwell. Sadly, Mr H died from a suspected heart attack a week later.

5. Mr A complained to the Trust on 30 December 2020. The Trust replied to his complaint on 18 July 2022. Mr A then got legal advice. He decided not to take legal action and complained to us on 14 October 2023.

7. 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 a problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we think there is a good reason to. We discussed this with Mr A to understand the reasons why he did not come to us sooner. We also considered the time the Trust took to respond to Mr A’s complaint.

8. Mr A first complained to the Trust within three months of his brother’s death. The NHS also has a time limit of one year for a complaint to be made. Mr A made his complaint to the Trust within this time limit. The Trust took 19 months to respond to his complaint, sending its final response on 18 July 2022.

9. We have no concerns with the time Mr A took to make his complaint to the Trust. We can also see he was not responsible for the delay in getting the response to his complaint. But, Mr A waited for 14 months before complaining to us on 14 October 2023. This is despite the Trust providing our contact details in its complaint response.

10. Mr A told us his mother died in February 2021 and this affected his ability to complain because the family was grieving. At that time he was waiting for the Trust’s complaint response. He also referred to two other deaths of close family members. We are sorry to hear about these bereavements.

11. Mr A told us he got legal advice after getting the Trust’s response. If Mr A was able to contact solicitors, we think he would have been able to contact us about his complaint despite the bereavements. The evidence suggests Mr A was trying to make a clinical negligence claim for a large amount of money. As this is the outcome he wanted, he was right to get legal advice. It was his decision to get legal advice rather than complaining to us.

12. Mr A also said the COVID-19 pandemic was partly responsible for the delay in him complaining to us. But, between July 2022 and October 2023 there were no COVID-19 restrictions.

13. We recognise how distressing the events of Mr A’s complaint were for him and his family. Unfortunately, we cannot start a detailed investigation of his complaint because it is out of time. We have not seen a good reason to put the time limit to one side.

1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust (the Trust). We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit and we have not seen good reason to put the time limit to one side. We recognise this will be disappointing for Mr A and his family.

2. We can see Mr A and his family have gone through a devastating time and we are sorry to hear about Mr A’s brother’s, Mr H, death.