East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

5. Mr A complains that the Trust made mistakes in the way it managed the care and treatment of his husband Mr B in 2023. His complaint is that the Trust:

• did not review a CT scan of 24 January 2023 in a timely way • shared misleading information at a consultation on 27 April • carried out an unnecessary biopsy on 28 April • did not gave care and treatment before and after the biopsy in the period 27 April to 30 April in the way it should.

6. Mr A says as a result of what happened his husband died in pain and uncertainty, sooner than would have otherwise been the case. This has left Mr A with overwhelming grief and has affected his mental health.

7. Mr B’s GP made referral to the Trust under the two week wait referral system in January 2023. This is a system that allows a patient with symptoms that may indicate an underlying cancer to be seen as quickly as possible.

8. The Trust saw Mr B in clinic within two weeks and arranged a CT scan a week later. Mr A told us that they had chased the results of the scan and left a message for the consultant to call them back. When they did not hear back they assumed no news was good news.

9. Mr B’s GP then made an urgent referral mid April because the Trust had not been in touch and Mr B had additional symptoms.

10. The Trust met with Mr B and Mr A towards the end of April and explained the CT scan results had not been reviewed. At this point the Trust could not explain how this had happened.

11. The Trust arranged for Mr B to be admitted to hospital and carried out a biopsy the next day. The Trust inadvertently damaged one of the blood vessels during the biopsy. It arranged an angioembolisation (a procedure to stop bleeding).

12. Mr B’s condition deteriorated and the Trust placed him on an end-of-life pathway on 29 April, and discharged him home on 5 May. Mr A sadly died a few days after discharge.

15. Mr A told us he has instructed a solicitor to take legal action. Section Four of the Health Service Commissioner Act 1993 (HCA) says we cannot investigate where a person has a remedy in a court of law unless we are satisfied it is not reasonable for them to have resorted to it.

16. We understand that Mr A is not seeking a financial remedy from bringing his complaint to us, and so we carefully considered whether we should consider his complaint at the same time as the legal action.

17. We decided this would not be the best course of action. Mr A is not able at this time to clearly articulate what outcomes he would want from bringing his complaint to the Ombudsman.

18. Courts can achieve outcomes additional to financial remedy. It is possible Mr A could obtain the resolution he seeks through legal action. It is possible he would have a clearer picture at the end of this action of any outcomes that remain outstanding, that he would want from bringing his complaint to the Ombudsman.

19. Additionally, we do not think it would be reasonable to run the two processes in parallel, as this may be onerous for the parties involved. It is possible the two processes may overlap and they may impact on the effectiveness and timeliness of each other.

20. We also considered the police investigation that is ongoing. Mr A told us he hopes this will bring resolution to his concerns. For the same reasons as outlined in paragraph 19, we do not think we should carry out a consideration of Mr A’s complaint while this is ongoing.

21. For these reasons we have decided not to consider Mr A’s complaint further at this time. If he has outstanding outcomes at the conclusion of the legal action and the police investigation he can return and we will consider whether to carry out a detailed investigation at that point.

22. We hope this statement makes clear the reasons why we are unable to consider Mr A’s complaint at this time. We thank him for the time he has taken to bring his complaint and for telling us about his difficult and upsetting experience.

1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint and have decided not to look further at it at this time.

2. This is because Mr A is taking legal action and this is ongoing.

3. Mr A also told us there is an active police investigation into circumstances surrounding information shared after his husband’s death.

4. We were sorry to hear how deeply Mr A has been affected by his experience.