3. Mr C H complains the Trust failed to carry out an endoscopy when his brother, Mr B H was an in-patient in January 2019. He said the Trust did not refer to all his records and had not considered all the possible causes of his symptoms.
4. Mr C H says as a result of what happened his brother died, and he has been deeply affected. The outcomes he seeks are an apology, an acknowledgement of failings and a meeting with senior Trust officials.
5. Mr B H was admitted to hospital on 9 January 2019. Mr C H had some concerns about the care and treatment the Trust were giving his brother and he discussed these with the Trust at the time. Mr B H sadly died later that month in hospital.
6. Mr C H requested his brother’s medical records in October 2023 and made a complaint to the Trust in December 2023. The Trust replied in January 2024 and signposted Mr C H to us if he remained unhappy with the response.
7. Mr C H returned to the Trust in February explaining why he was dissatisfied with the response. The Trust responded within a week to say it felt it had already fully responded to the issues. Mr C H brought his complaint to us in March.
10. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem (we call this the date of knowledge). We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.
11. Mr C H’s date of knowledge was in January 2019. This is when Mr C H became aware he had cause to complain.
12. This means when Mr C H first brought his complaint to us on 7 March 2024 it was over four years outside our time limit.
13. We can see the Trust took just over a month to provide its complaint response. The regulations say organisations should complete an investigation and give the complainant a response within six months. We can see this happened and so we think the Trust replied in a timely manner.
14. We asked Mr C H for more information to consider the reasons he did not make his complaint sooner.
15. Mr C H told us that after Mr B H died he went over and over what had happened in his head. He explained that he did not make a complaint because he knew this would not bring his brother back. We understand how difficult it is when a family member dies and we are sorry for the sadness Mr C H felt while thinking about the circumstances of his brother’s death.
16. Mr C H told us he eventually felt able to request his brother’s records in October 2023. He decided he needed to make a complaint for his brother and for other people who might be affected by similar issues. He said it took him some time to go through his brother’s notes.
17. We understand it can be difficult to make a complaint when grieving. There are organisations that can help with this, they can represent people in complaints and request records for them if needed. We think it would have been reasonable for Mr C H to have sought help from such an advocacy organisation, to alleviate the pressure on him and bring the complaint sooner.
18. We do not think the explanation for the delay is reason enough for us to put our time limit on one side.
19. We understand how much this matter means to Mr C H and it is clear how well he advocated and cared for his brother. We thank him for sharing the details of his complaint. 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 decided not to consider Mr C H’s complaint further. This is because the complaint falls outside of our time limit. We carefully considered Mr C H’s reasons for not bringing his complaint to us sooner. We did not think these were sufficient reason to set aside our time limit and so we will take no further action.
2. We thank Mr C H for taking the time to tell us about his experience and the ongoing impact this has. We hope this statement explains the reasons for our decision.