The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust

3. Miss R complains about the care and treatment the Trust gave her after a planned caesarean section in November 2021. She says as a result of the treatment she developed an infection and sepsis (a life-threatening reaction to an infection).

4. She told us the care and treatment left her needing surgery, that she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is petrified of needing more surgery. She says what happened affected her physical and mental wellbeing. She wants the Trust to accept its failings, for it to make service improvements and to make a financial payment to her.

5. Miss R made her complaint about her experience in March 2022 and the Trust sent a written response in June. Miss R was unhappy with the response and requested a meeting to discuss her issues.

6. The Trust held a meeting with Miss R in September 2022 and sent her another written response summarising the meeting, later that month.

7. Miss R asked us to investigate in December 2023. This was 13 months after the Trust’s final response.

10. 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.

11. Miss R knew there was a problem on 4 December 2021. This is when she started to feel unwell after her caesarean.

12. This means that when Miss R made the complaint to us on 6 December 2023 it was two years after she knew there was a problem and so one year outside our time limit.

13. We asked Miss R for more information to consider the reasons she did not bring her complaint to us sooner. We asked about the period between her getting the final Trust complaint response and contacting us. We also considered the time the Trust took to send the complaint responses to see if this impacted on the complaint coming to us late.

14. Miss R told us she discussed what happened with her partner and decided not to take her issues further through the complaints process. She said she had tried for several months to find a solicitor but was not successful.

15. We can see that Miss R made her complaint quickly and the Trust also did not delay in sending the responses. The regulations say organisations should complete an investigation and give the complainant a response within six months and the Trust’s actions were in line with this.

16. We consider there was an opportunity for Miss R to bring her complaint to us when she knew she was unhappy about the second complaint response in September 2022. The Trust told her about us and if she had come to us then, her complaint would have been within our time limit.

17. Miss R was entitled to decide not to continue with the complaints process at that time and to instead explore her options for taking legal action. These would not be reasons for us to put our time limit to one side so we have decided not to consider the complaint further.

18. We understand how much this complaint means to Miss R and thank her for sharing the details. It is important we consider and act within the law and we hope this statement clearly explains the reasons for our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Miss R’s complaint about the care and treatment The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) gave her after her caesarean section in November 2021. The complaint falls outside of our time limit, and we have not seen good reasons to put our time limit to one side and investigate further.

2. We thank Miss R for taking the time to tell us about her upsetting experience and the ongoing impact this has. We hope this statement explains the reasons for our decision.