Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mrs E complains about aspects of care the Trust provided her husband, Mr U, on 6 March 2024. Specifically, she complains that staff allowed him to go to the bathroom alone and without oxygen which resulted in him having a fall. She feels this fall led to his deterioration and death the following day.

4. She also complains about the Trust’s communication. She says it did not tell the family about the fall and took too long to tell them about Mr U’s deterioration. She says this prevented the family from saying goodbye as Mr U died before they arrived.

5. In bringing this complaint to us, Mrs E would like the Trust to provide a financial remedy.

6. What follows is a summary of events. We have not included all details as both parties are aware of this.

7. Mr U was a hospital inpatient during the period of complaint. He was 82 years old and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition that affects breathing.

8. On 6 March 2024 Mr U went to the bathroom on his own without oxygen and had a fall. Shortly after this his condition deteriorated and he sadly died on 7 March.

11. The Health Service Commissioners Act of 1993 (HCSA) says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has, or had, the option to take legal action. This is unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances.

12. We consider Mrs E may be able to make a clinical negligence claim. This is because she has told us the Trust’s actions led to her husband’s deterioration and contributed to his death.

13. Mrs E is seeking a financial remedy. We shared our severity of injustice scale (SOI) with her, which sets out our approach to recommending financial remedies. Whilst she was unable to specify a figure, she would like a financial remedy within level six on our SOI. She is therefore seeking a significant sum, possibly higher than we might recommend if we were to uphold her complaint. Mrs E may be able to achieve a higher amount if any legal action she takes is successful.

14. After establishing there is a possible legal route, we have gone onto explore with Mrs E if it reasonable for her to pursue.

15. We spoke to Mrs E to understand the complaint, the injustices she says she has faced resulting from her experiences and whether legal action would be reasonable for her to pursue.

16. During our call Mrs E made us aware she is terminally ill and there may come a point where she was unable to pursue a complaint or legal action. She confirmed her daughter is fully supporting her with her complaint and is willing and able to take over any proceedings if she becomes too unwell to engage. For this reason, we do not consider this to be a barrier to her pursuing legal action.

17. Mrs E also mentioned that finances may be a barrier to her pursuing legal action. We discussed no win no fee options and Mrs E was willing to pursue this option. Therefore, we do not consider finances are a barrier to pursuing legal action currently.

18. During our discussion, Mrs E did not make us aware of any other surrounding circumstances which leads us to consider it unreasonable to pursue a legal route.

19. We consider it is reasonable for Mrs E to pursue legal action before she asks us to consider her concerns about her husband’s care. If she is unsuccessful or cannot achieve her desired outcome, she can bring her complaint back to us. We cannot look at concerns a court has already examined, but we can consider if there is anything remaining we can look at, and if there are any other outcomes we may be able to achieve for her.

20. Whist Mrs E does not have a possible cause of action for her concerns about communication, these are closely linked to her main concern about her husband’s care. It would not be appropriate for us to consider looking at the Trust’s communication in isolation. We would not be able to achieve the outcome she wants by solely looking at this complaint point. This is because Mrs E says her main concern is her husband’s care on 6 March 2024 and her concern this resulted in his sad death.

21. If Mrs E wants to bring her complaint back to us, she should do this as soon as she can. This is because complainants must come to us within 12 months from the date they were aware they had reason to complain. We do have some discretion when applying our time limit but there must be good reason for us to put this to one side.

22. For the reasons we have provided, we shall take no further action on the complaint. We hope we have explained our decision clearly. We recognise the significant distress her husband’s death has caused her and thank her for bringing her concerns to us.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs E’s complaint about the Trust. We are sorry to hear of her husband’s death and the significant impact this has had for her and her family.

2. In speaking to Mrs E, we consider she could take legal action on the main part of her complaint, and it is reasonable for her to do so. We have explained the reasons for this within the following statement.