Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

2. Mr P complains about the care and treatment the three organisations provided to his mother, Mrs P, in April 2019. Mr P says his mother may not have died if she had received appropriate treatment. He would like the 3 organisations to apologise for the impact the failings had, improve their service and pay financial compensation.

3. Mrs P was admitted to hospital on 10 April 2019 following a fall at her home. She sadly died in hospital on 20 April 2019.

5. Our Service Model Guidance says a complainant must refer their complaint to us within one year from the day they first became aware that they had a reason to complain. This is referred to as the ‘date of knowledge’. We cannot consider complaints brought to us more than one year after the date of knowledge unless we can see there was an exceptional circumstance which prevented the person from doing so.

6. Mrs P died on 20 April 2019. On his complaint form Mr P says he became aware of the need to complain straight away and we have accepted 20 April 2019 as the date of knowledge. To meet our time limit Mr P needed to formally bring his complaint to us by 20 April 2020.

7. Mr P made his initial complaint to the organisations in September 2019. The local resolution of his complaint was severely delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and he contacted us in April 2021 to discuss his complaint. We decided not to consider Mr P’s complaint at this time as local resolution was still ongoing with the organisations.

8. Mr P returned to us in August 2021 after local resolution had been concluded. His complaint was placed in our queue and remained there for 8 months due to the backlog of complaints we were experiencing at that time as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr P’s complaint was assigned to a caseworker in April 2022. During the discussion with our caseworker Mr P told us he was pursuing a clinical negligence claim. In line with our Service Model Guidance we decided not to consider Mr P’s complaint at this time as he had commenced legal proceedings.

9. We informed Mr P of our decision and closed his complaint on 5 May 2022. In the cover letter to our decision statement we said:

‘As we can see you have started legal action, we are unable to consider your complaint at this time. If you remain dissatisfied following legal action, you may return to us, and we will consider if there are any parts of your complaint we can look at.

Please be aware if you do wish to return to us, you will need to do so promptly due to the time limit we have for making complaints. Our time limit is (twelve months) from the date of events or the date the person knew they had reason to complain.’

10. Mr P came back to us on 10 August 2024 after discontinuing his legal action on 30 July 2024. This is 2 years and 3 months after our decision of 5 May 2022 and 5 years and 4 months after the date of knowledge. At the point we received Mr P’s complaint on 10 August 2024 it was 4 years and 4 months outside our 1 year time limit.

11. The reason we could not consider Mr P’s complaint after he brought it to us in August 2021, when it had exhausted local resolution and was ready for us to consider, was because Mr P decided to pursue legal action instead. Mr P discontinued his legal action on 30 July 2024 and by this time his complaint had fallen significantly outside our time limit.

12. To explain the delay in coming back to us after our decision of 5 May 2022 Mr P has provided a great deal of evidence to show the delays he has experienced pursuing his legal action. We acknowledge the delays and difficulties Mr P describes whilst pursuing his legal action. It was Mr P’s decision to pursue legal action and we are not critical of this decision. Legal action is a reasonable option to pursue a complaint and often has the potential to achieve the outcomes the complainant is looking to achieve.

13. However we do not think Mr P’s decision to pursue legal action and the delays he encountered in that process whilst attempting to do so are an exceptional circumstance which would allow us to set aside our time limit. For this reason, we have decided not to consider his complaint further.

14. We acknowledge how distressing this incident was for Mr P and the profound impact the death of his mother has had. We hope this statement helps Mr P to understand our decision. We would like to offer our condolences on his loss.

1. We have carefully considered Mr P’s complaint and have decided it is outside our time limit.