Barts Health NHS Trust

3. Miss H complains following her mother’s admission to the Trust, in September 2023: • it gave the family false hope her mother would recover after it intubated her on 11 September • following her transfer to another of its hospitals, it did not obtain her family’s consent before paralysing her on 14 September or changing her dialysis tube • it did not change her mother’s breathing tube • it did not identify signs of her mother’s ventilated-associated pneumonia • it communicated poorly with the family then suddenly contacted them on the day she died.

4. Miss H feels poor care led to her mother’s deterioration and death on 16 September 2023. She says the experience and bereavement have had a lasting mental impact on her family. Miss H would like the Trust to acknowledge its failings.

6. 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. We have discussed this with Miss H to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

7. Miss H’s key concern relates to clinical issues regarding the care and treatment her mother received from the Trust. She believes shortcomings in the care her mother received may have led to her death. She wants the Trust to ‘take accountability’ and ‘admit’ things went wrong.

8. Financial remedy is not one of the outcomes Miss H specified she would like us to recommend. However, she has referred to ‘negligence’ and intends to pursue legal action following our involvement. This suggests she has considered making a clinical negligence claim. We are unable to carry out an investigation just to establish if she could make a claim.

9. There are time limits for making legal claims and for those seeking compensation, a court could award higher levels of financial remedy than we might recommend. Legal action can sometimes achieve other outcomes as a by-product of any decision that is made. This could include the acknowledgement and service improvements Miss H is seeking.

10. Taking all of this into account, legal action appears to be a reasonable option for Miss H to explore. Following our discussion with her, Miss H confirmed she would like to seek free legal advice to explore whether a legal claim may be possible. We are unable to keep the case open while she seeks advice so we are taking no further action on this complaint.

11. If Miss H is unable to pursue legal action or the court does not look at all the outcomes she wants, she may decide to bring this complaint back to us. If that happens, we will need to consider our time limit so it is important she returns to us promptly. We will also check how far she got with the legal process to understand why she has returned to us.

12. We recognise how significantly Mrs G’s passing affected Miss H and her family. We would like to offer our condolences for their loss and we hope this decision statement clearly explains our reasoning.

1. We have carefully considered Miss H’s complaint about the Trust. We were sorry to hear her concerns about the care her mother, Mrs G, received before she sadly passed away.

2. We consider Miss H could take legal action on the matter she has brought to us. As we have explained in this statement, we have decided not to consider the complaint further.