Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

4. Miss U says she is concerned about the care and treatment provided to her father, Mr U, by the Trust from 20 March 2024 until 28 March 2024. Specifically, she says the Trust: • gave Mr U aspirin after eight hours of being within the Trust on presentation of a stroke rather the recommended four hours • provided inconsistent and contradictory information about his stroke diagnosis and where the bleed was within his brain • brought Mr U out of his induced coma earlier than initially planned and there is no record of this • issued conflicting accounts both during Mr U’s treatment and in its subsequent complaint response.

5. Miss U continues to experience emotional distress following Mr U’s care and the handling of her concerns. She believes the delay in treatment may have contributed to his deterioration and death, and the lack of explanation has left her with unresolved doubts. Conflicting information about his diagnosis and undocumented changes to his sedation plan caused confusion and trauma. Discrepancies between what was communicated during treatment and in the complaint, response have further eroded her trust, and she remains anxious that similar issues could affect others.

6. Miss U hopes by bringing this complaint to us to receive an apology, service improvements and financial remedy of £30,000.

9. 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. Simply put, if someone has a legal route available to achieve the outcomes they are looking for. And if it is reasonable for them to pursue that route, we are not able to look at the complaint further.

10. To understand Miss U’s situation and desired outcomes, and whether it would be reasonable for her to explore legal action, we reviewed the documents she submitted to us and discussed this with her. Our role is not to assess whether legal action would be successful but rather whether it is a reasonable option to consider.

11. Miss U has raised several concerns about the clinical care provided by the Trust. Miss U is concerned that the Trust made mistakes which contributed to her father’s death. As such, it appears that Miss U may have legal recourse through the courts with a clinical negligence claim.

12. We have therefore considered whether legal action could help her achieve the outcomes she is seeking, and whether it is reasonable for her to take that route.

13. Miss U has indicated she is seeking financial compensation for the distress and trauma of losing her father. Based on this, we can see the courts may be better placed to achieve this financial outcome.

14. We also considered possible barriers to pursuing legal action and any reasons why it might not be reasonable for Miss U to take legal action. Miss U has confirmed she and her family were considering this option depending on our outcome. Therefore, we can see there are no barriers to her pursuing that action because she is already considering this option.

15. With the above in mind, we can see Miss U has a legal route available to her and it would be reasonable for her to pursue it to achieve the financial remedy she seeks.

16. In addition to financial compensation, Miss U also seeks an apology and service improvements. This is not something courts are likely to directly achieve for her, although they may be achieved as a byproduct of any legal action.

17. If Miss U pursues legal action which does not achieve all of the outcomes she is seeking, she can return to us after legal action is complete.

18. It is also open for Miss U to return to us if she explores legal action and it becomes clear that it is no longer reasonable for her to pursue that route.

19. If Miss U does return to us in future, it is important she does so promptly because we would need to consider our own one-year time limit, in line with the ‘Health Service Commissioner Act 1993’. We can set this limit to one side where there is good reason to do so.

20. Any delays in returning to us may affect our ability to set the limit aside, so if she decides to return to us, we encourage her to contact us as soon as possible.

21. We understand that this experience has been traumatic for Miss U and her family. We would like to thank her for sharing her experience so openly as we are aware going over the events has been painful. We hope this statement clearly sets out how we thought about what she told us and how we reached our decision in this case.

1. We have carefully considered Miss U’s complaint about Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust).

2. Miss U complains about aspects of the care and treatment the Trust provided to her father, Mr U. Miss U says the Trust delayed treatment for Mr U when he had suffered stroke and changed plans regarding his sedation for and induced coma, attempting to wake him early. In addition, they provided contradictory information about the severity of the stroke and position within Mr U’s brain. The caused Miss U and her family a lot of distress and Mr U died suddenly and unexpectedly.

3. Having carefully thought about what Miss U has told us we have decided to take no further action at this time. This is because we can see Miss U has a legal route available to her to achieve the financial remedy she is seeking. Miss U says she and her family were considering this option after completing our process.