A practice in the Bournemouth area

4. Mrs A complains about the care and treatment the Practice and the Trust gave her between March 2021 and June 2022.

5. Mrs A says: • the Trust refused to do bariatric (weight loss) surgery • the Practice did not provide an appropriate treatment plan for her left hip and knee • the Practice and Trust did not work together to give her joined-up care for her left hip and knee • the Trust refused to provide hip and knee surgery.

6. Mrs A told us because of this: • she could not lose weight to qualify for surgery on her hip and knee • the condition of her left hip and knee got worse, reducing her mobility • she had unnecessary pain for a long time • she had a poor quality of life • the whole family watched the distress their mother was in and had to do everything for her • her daughter had to pay over £50,000 for private surgery.

7. Mrs A wants: • a full refund of the £50,000 costs for surgery • compensation for the pain, distress and discomfort she has been through • compensation to pay for private bariatric surgery and surgery for her right knee.

9. The Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says we cannot investigate a complaint if it can be resolved by taking legal action, unless it is not reasonable to expect a complainant to do this. Legal action can include making a clinical negligence claim. Clinical negligence is when there has been a failure to give appropriate treatment or when a patient becomes injured because of the treatment given.

10. Mrs A wants financial compensation as an outcome for her complaint. We discussed this with Mrs A and think she could explore this by making a clinical negligence claim. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look into. We thought about whether there is anything that would make taking legal action unreasonable for Mrs A.

11. We explained to Mrs A we would give her details of organisations who can advise on how to explore ‘no win no fee’ claim options.

12. While we can recommend financial compensation, we do not handle clinical negligence claims, and the amounts that can be achieved by legal action are often higher than what we could recommend. We believe it is reasonable for Mrs A to get legal advice because of how she says she was affected by what happened and to achieve the amount of compensation she is looking for.

13. Mrs A has limited time to take legal action and we do not want her to lose her opportunity to explore this option.

14. We explained our decision to Mrs A and her daughter. We explained that if legal action is not possible or there are outcomes that a court has not considered, they can contact us again. We also explained that if they need to come back to us, they should do this as soon as possible as there is a 12-month time limit when bringing a complaint to us.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mrs A’s complaint about a practice in the Bournemouth area (the Practice) and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation (the Trust).

2. We are sorry to hear about the issues with Mrs A’s hips and knees that have caused her much pain and have affected her ability to move for some time. We understand this has been a distressing time for Mrs A and her family.

3. Mrs A could take legal action to resolve her complaint. For this reason, we are not investigating her complaint further. We explain the reasons for our decision below.