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. Mrs M believes her mother was put at risk, suffered serious harm, in fact may have lost her life, because of fallings in her care. Briefly, those were the original injury she suffered in the ambulance (this complaint) combined with the additional failings which occurred while she was being looked after in hospital (which are the subject of a separate complaint Mrs M is still pursuing with the other NHS Trust involved).
9.If she is correct and there were significant failings in Mrs B’s care which caused, or at least contributed to, her death, Mrs M would have a cause of action for clinical negligence.
10.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.
11.With all of that in mind, it appeared to us that legal action was something Mrs M could and should explore, given the nature of her concerns, what she believed to be the seriousness of the outcome, and the financial compensation she is seeking.
12.Mrs M did not give us any reason she would be unable to explore legal action.
13.A court will be able to carefully consider and assess whether Mrs B’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.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. We were aware in considering this case that Mrs M is complaining about events that took place in June 2022. We did not want to delay making this decision any longer for that reason.
15. Although this decision only directly relates to Mrs M’s complaint about West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, we took account of the fact that she also has intrinsically linked concerns about the care provided by a different NHS Trust. She is still dealing with the other Trust directly about those concerns. The crux of Mrs M’s complaint appears to be that the care provided by both Trusts, combined, was the problem. It may therefore be best that she includes/refers to both when exploring the option of legal action.
16.There are several independent and charitable organisations who can assist people who wish to make legal claims against the NHS, and we have shared details of those with Mrs M.
17.If Mrs M does not achieve all the outcomes she is seeking via legal action, or she does not take legal action, she can bring her complaint back to us to consider again. If she chooses to bring her complaint back to us, she should do us promptly as we will need to consider our time limits. We will also need to consider the outcome of any legal action she has taken.
18.In summary, we decided to take no further action on this complaint because Mrs M has an alternative legal route available to her which we think should explore first. We hope we have explained the thorough consideration we have given to our decision and clearly outlined the reasons for it.