A practice in the Rutland area

3. Miss A complains the Practice delayed referring her to Adult Autism Services (AAS) for 13 months (between September 2022 and October 2023) and it did not include the correct information on the referral.

4. She also complains the Practice did not carry out reviews of her medication as it should have.

5. Miss A further complains the Practice deregistered her when it should not have.

6. Miss A says the delay in referral to AAS meant she has not accessed the support she needs. She says because of this she cannot work, does not engage in social activity and her mental health has declined. She says because her GP did not include the correct information, AAS declined the referral.

7. Miss A explains not reviewing her medication in 2022 meant her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms were not controlled. She says because the Practice took her off its list, she has had to register at a different practice and she finds it difficult to engage with the clinicians because she has not yet built up trust with them.

8. Miss A would like a financial payment to cover living expenses until she can get employment.

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 unreasonable in the circumstances. This makes sure that we do not interfere with matters which are in the remit of a court.

11. We have discussed this with Miss A to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

12. Miss A has clearly said she feels failings in the Practice’s duty of care led to a significant decline in her mental health and has meant she could not access the support services she needed to manage her ADHD. Because of this she told us she has not been able to work since February 2023, she does not have a meaningful social life and she finds it difficult to sleep. She is looking for a financial payment. A clinical negligence claim could look at this.

13. Miss A did not say exactly how much money she wanted but is clear she would like a large amount to cover her living expenses until she is able to work again.

14. We looked at our severity of injustice scale to help us understand what we may be able to achieve if we investigated and found failings that linked to the impact Miss A described.

15. Our scale guides us in any financial recommendations we may make. It has six levels of injustice that a complaint could fall into, these increase in severity (one being the lowest injustice and six being the highest).

16. Due to the significant and long-term effect Miss A says the events have had on her mental health, she thinks the impact is between level three and four on our scale. That would mean a payment of between £500 and £2,950. As Miss A has said she would like a payment to support her for future loss of earnings while she is unable to work, we think she would want a larger payment than this. Legal action is more likely to be able to achieve a higher payment and it can look at future loss of earnings.

17. We also considered if there are any barriers to her taking legal action. Miss A said she did not have the financial means to make a claim through the courts. She also said she felt legal action would be stressful for her.

18. We empathise with the potential issues Miss A has raised. We would recommend that Miss A contacts solicitors on a ‘no-win-no-fee’ basis to see if she can fund a claim this way. It is also important to explain that we cannot guarantee that our process would not be stressful. A solicitor with a background in clinical negligence will have both experience and expertise in how best to approach and support Miss A with her claim.

19. There is a clear legal route Miss A could use to potentially achieve her outcome of a large financial payment. The courts may or may not achieve this outcome, but they are better suited to consider it.

20. It is important that we do not disadvantage Miss A by continuing to consider her case because there are strict time-limits for legal proceedings.

21. We have explained to Miss A that if solicitors do not accept her case, she is able to return to us. If she does return, we would need to consider how far her legal claim progressed and what (if any) outcomes were achieved. We would also need to consider our time limit so we would advise her to explore legal action as quickly as she can. We can put our time limit to one side if there are strong reasons to.

22. We are sorry to hear about what Miss A experienced at the Practice. We hope she gets the support she needs from specialist services to help her manage her ADHD.

1. We have carefully considered Miss A’s complaint about a GP Practice in the Rutland area (the Practice). We are sorry to hear about Miss A’s ongoing distress and realise she has needed to register at a different practice which has added to her upset.

2. We have decided to take no further action because we think Miss A could take legal action on the matters she has brought to us. We have set out the reasons for this decision below.