University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

3. Miss H complains about the care and treatment her sister, Ms B, received from the Trust following two unwitnessed seizures and a head injury on 14 March 2025.

4. Specifically, she says the Trust failed carry out a full examination, arrange scans and wrongly let her sister leave hospital without informing the family of a second seizure.

5. Miss H says the events led to her sister’s tragic death on the same evening. Her and her family have been ripped apart with grief and suffered severe distress.

6. Miss H seeks a financial remedy and service improvements.

7. Ms B had an unwitnessed seizure in the street. An ambulance took her to hospital because she complained of a head injury, headache and neck pain. She arrived at 4pm and the Trust discharged her at 7.40pm.

8. During the complaints process, the Trust told Miss H that when it discharged her sister, she had another seizure. Miss H said a family member collected her sister and noted she was confused and disoriented. Ms B sadly had a cardiac arrest and died the same evening.

11. 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 do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

12. It is our understanding a legal claim by way of clinical negligence or under the Fatal Accidents Act may be available. This is because Miss H has told us the Trust did not provide her sister with the correct care and wrongly let her leave hospital, and this contributed to her death.

13. Miss H seeks service improvements and a financial remedy. We gave information to her about our approach to recommending financial remedies, as set out in our severity of injustice scale (SOI).

14. Miss H told us she would like a financial remedy above level six on our SOI. Therefore, she explained she has spoken to a solicitor and started legal proceedings. As she has already spoken to a solicitor, we consider there are no barriers to her proceeding with this. Most clinical negligence claiMs Bre funded by way of no win no fee agreements which would not incur any upfront costs. There does not appear to be any concerns about this type of funding. Miss H told us the solicitor she has already spoken to is a no win no fee firm.

15. While we can make recommendations for financial remedies, the amounts we recommend are typically modest when compared with what legal action can sometimes achieve. We do not achieve financial outcomes like the courts do. Because Miss H has already spoken to a solicitor and seeks a larger financial remedy, legal action would be the best route for her to explore achieving the financial compensation she and her family seek.

16. A legal claim cannot directly set out to achieve the service improvements Miss H seeks, but it is possible she could achieve these as aby-product of a legal case.

17. It is therefore reasonable for Miss H to proceed with the legal action she has already started. If she is unsuccessful in pursuing legal action or is unable to achieve the outcomes she wants, she can bring her complaint back to us to consider. We cannot look at concerns a court has already examined, but we can consider if there is anything remaining, and if there are any other outcomes we may be able to achieve for her.

18. Should Miss H want to bring her complaint back to us, she should do so as promptly as she can. This is because we have a time limit for looking at complaints which is 12 months from the date the person was 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.

19. We thank Miss H for bringing her complaint to us for us to consider. We understand the distress these issued have caused her and recognise the heartbreaking circumstances of her complaint. We would like to again offer our condolences for her loss and hope this decision statement clearly explains our reasoning.

1. We have carefully considered Miss H’s complaint about University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (the Trust). We are sorry to hear about the events that led to her complaint and the tragic death of her sister. We understand this has been, and remains to be a very difficult time for her and her family. We offer our condolences to Miss H and her family.

2. We have decided not to consider Miss H’s complaint any further at this time. This is because she had told us she is currently pursuing legal action against the Trust, by way of a clinical negligence claim.