8. 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 consider there is a good reason to do so.
9. Mrs L explains the date of events complained about were in June 2022. This is because she has concerns surrounding her husband’s death and this is when he died. She has given this as her date of knowledge. Date of knowledge is a term we use for when someone knew they had a reason to complain.
10. It appears Mrs L was unhappy at the time of her husband’s death, as she feels it was unexplained, and knew she had a reason to complain here. Therefore, for the complaint to be in time, it would need to have come to our office by June 2023. Mrs L first complained to the care home and ICB together in June 2023.
11. We have discussed this with Mrs L to understand the reasons why she could not have complained to the care home and ICB, or us sooner. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to respond to Mrs L.
12. Mrs L explained in the first instance she was complaining to the local hospital, about care and treatment Mr L received as an inpatient in May 2022. This is not the subject of the complaint to us.
13. We have considered this correspondence, and this complaint was about specific care and treatment on that ward. Mrs L complained to this hospital in October 2022 and had a local resolution meeting in February 2023.
14. At the face-to-face meeting with the hospital, Mrs L raised her concerns about the care home. The hospital advised the concerns would be best raised with the ICB as the commissioner. The hospital said it would also email the ICB when it received her consent and full list of concerns. The hospital provided her with a complaint response on 23 February 2023.
15. Mrs L then returned to the hospital in June 2023, with the details of her concerns about the care home and that she was dissatisfied with its response. She also then contacted the ICB directly in June 2023. The ICB responded in July 2023. Mrs L returned to the ICB five months later, in December 2023 with further questions. The ICB responded in December 2023 and the complaint came to us in January 2024.
16. We spoke with Mrs L via phone and letter, to understand if there were any further reasons why she didn’t raise a complaint sooner with the care home or ICB. We discussed if there were any reasons for the gap from February 2023 when the Trust advised to provide it and/or the ICB with concerns, to contacting it in June 2023. We also discussed the ICB responding in July 2023 and Mrs L raising further concerns in December 2023.
17. Mrs L has not provided us with any reasons for these specific gaps we have identified, other than that she was liaising with the local hospital.
18. It appears Mrs L knew she had concerns at the time after her husband’s death. We understand and accept that initially she was dealing with the shock and grief. We recognise she was then pursuing other concerns with a local hospital from October 2022. This supports that was able to engage with the complaints process at that time but made the decision to pursue her other concerns. This is understandable, and we empathise with the position she was in if she had concerns about multiple organisations. Liaising with the hospital would not have stopped her raising her concerns about the care home directly, and it is unclear why these were not raised sooner.
19. If we discount the year Mrs L had to make the complaint from the date of events in June 2022, to June 2023, we have identified a further gap of five months from the ICB and care home responding, to Mrs L returning to them in December 2023.
20. We are left without good reason for this five-month gap, when we consider Mrs L could have gone back sooner. We appreciate the circumstances described but have not seen exceptional reasons to justify putting the time limit to one side.
21. We recognise Mrs L’s complaint is extremely important to her and this has been a distressing process. Our decision is not intended to take away from what she has been through. We are grateful to Mrs L for taking the time to contact us.