2.Mr A complained about his late mother, Mrs U’s, care and treatment by GMMH and the Trust in 2022. He told us his mother's death had been due to failings in her care and 'was entirely preventable beyond any reasonable doubt'.
3.Mr A wanted us to establish that his mother’s death could have been avoided. He told us the outcome he was seeking was to ensure that 'all organisations and individuals are held accountable'.
5.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 (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances.
6.We do not consider whether legal action would succeed, only whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.
7.In general terms, clinical negligence takes place when a person suffers harm because of mistakes in their care and treatment. Failure to carry out appropriate treatment can also amount to negligence. Clinical negligence can only by established in the courts.
8.Mr A believes his mother was put at considerable risk, suffered serious harm, in fact may have lost her life, directly because of significant fallings in her care. If he is right about what happened, Mr A would have a cause of action for clinical negligence.
9.Mr A answered ‘yes’ to our question about whether he was taking, or planning to take, legal action. As we have explained above, where people have the option to pursue legal action the law says we should expect them to do that first, rather than look at the complaint ourselves. As Mr A has the option of taking of legal action and he has told us he intends to do tat at some stage, we cannot look at his complaint now.
10.With all of that in mind, we concluded first that legal action was something Mr A should explore, given the nature of his concerns and what he believed to be the seriousness of the outcome. Secondly, that he could pursue legal action, given what he told us about his intention to do so at some stage anyway.
11.The general rule of thumb is that people have three years to make a medical negligence claim, although there is some flexibility on that timing. Mr A has already entered the last year available to him to explore legal action. We do not want to compromise his chances of being able to do so by delaying our consideration of this complaint any longer.
12.Mr A can explore the option of taking legal action on the matter he brought to us given the claimed failings, the serious impact he says those had on his mother and the wider family, and the accountability he is seeking.
13.A court would be able to carefully consider and assess whether Mrs U’s care was negligent and whether her death can be attributed to that, as well as determining accountability, including awarding an appropriate amount of compensation if applicable.
14.Mr A did not give us any reason he would be unable to explore legal action. As mentioned above, he told us it was something he would like to pursue at some stage anyway. For the reasons we have explained above, we think he should explore it now, while he still has time.
15.There are several independent and charitable organisations who can assist people who wish to make legal claims against the NHS, and in our covering letter we have shared details of those with Mr A.
16.If Mr A does not achieve all the outcomes he is seeking via legal action, or he does not take legal action, he can bring his complaint back to us to consider again. If he chooses to bring his complaint back to us, he should do us promptly as we will need to consider our time limits.
17.In summary, we have decided to take no further action on this complaint because we consider Mr A has an alternative legal route available which we he should explore first. We hope we have explained the thorough consideration we have given to our decision and clearly outlined the reasons for it.
1.We carefully considered Mr A’s complaint. We decided to take no further action on it, for the time being at least. We decided Mr A should explore the option of taking legal action on the matter he brought to us.