Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mrs A complains that something went wrong with her cataract surgeries in January and April 2021. She is also concerned the surgeon did not adjust her lenses for her astigmatism (a condition that can cause blurred vision, headaches and eye strain). She says Trust staff did not listen when she explained it had used the wrong lenses.

4. Mrs A says the surgery damaged her vision, her astigmatism is worse and she now has ongoing problems. She says her eyes are extremely sensitive to lights, she sees bright starbursts and beams of light and that causes her a lot of discomfort. She explains this affects her daily life, she is unable to drive in the dark and she struggles to go out after dark. Mrs A says she has had two years of stress and frustration and her eyesight has not improved because the Trust ignored her main problem.

5. Mrs A wants financial compensation for the damage to her eyesight and the impact on her quality of life.

7. The Health Service and Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is unreasonable in the circumstances. We have discussed this with Mrs A 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.

8. Based on what Mrs A has told us, she could follow up the complaint by making a clinical negligence claim.

9. If we find a failing we can recommend financial compensation, but we look at this differently to a clinical negligence claim. We use a scale to help us decide on the right amount of compensation to recommend. We showed this scale to Mrs A and she felt the way she has been affected by what happened to her was level six on our scale.

10. The amount for level six is compensation of £10,000 or more. As this is a large amount, we think it would be more appropriate for Mrs A to try to get this by taking legal action.

11. When we discussed legal action with Mrs A, she said she had thought about this, but did not want to take this route. She told us she has a solicitor she could contact.

12. We appreciate Mrs A would prefer not to take legal action. We considered whether there were any barriers which would make taking a legal route difficult for Mrs A. We also asked Mrs A if there was anything that would stop her from taking a legal route. She told us there was nothing to stop her from making a legal claim, other than it not being her first choice of action. From what we have seen, we do not think it is unreasonable for Mrs A to look into taking legal action. Her complaint is also within the three-year time limit for making a legal claim and we do not want her to miss out on this opportunity.

13. We do not underestimate how difficult this experience continues to be for Mrs A. We have given her details of where she can find more information about the legal process. If she explores this and finds there is no legal route available to her, she can bring her complaint back to us.

14. If Mrs A were to come back to us, we would need to consider our time limit. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the problem. We can put this time limit to one side but only if we can see the complainant has brought the complaint to us as soon as they can.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mrs A’s complaint about Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are not looking at the complaint further because Mrs A could take legal action on the matter she has brought to us.

2. We are sorry to learn about the damage to Mrs A’s eyesight and the impact this had on her daily life.