3. Mrs R complains about aspects of care and treatment her husband, Mr R, received from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) in February 2025.
4. Mrs R is concerned the failings caused Mr R’s deterioration and death. This was distressing for Mrs R.
5. Mrs R seeks £10,000.
8. 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.
9. We have discussed this with Mrs R to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she seeks. We do not consider if legal action would succeed but if it would be a reasonable option to look in to.
10. In general terms, clinical negligence takes place when a person suffers harm because of mistakes in their care and treatment. Failure to carry out appropriate treatment can also amount to negligence. Clinical negligence can only be established by the courts.
11. Mrs R believes Mr R suffered harm because of failings in his care and treatment. If she is correct and there was a significant failing in his care which caused Mr R harm, she would have a legal action for clinical negligence available to her.
12. We understand Mrs R feels strongly the Trust’s care and treatment caused Mr R to deteriorate and it led to his death. Mrs R seeks £10,000 compensation as an outcome to the complaint.
13. Where people have the option to pursue legal action the law says we should expect them to do that first, rather than looking at the complaint ourselves.
14. A court will be able to carefully consider and assess if Mr R’s care was negligent and whether this caused his deterioration and death. It may also be able to determine accountability, including awarding an appropriate amount of compensation if applicable.
15. Where appropriate, a court can sometimes look at whether compensation is necessary for the ongoing or future impact on someone. We generally cannot do this in the same way as the courts.
16. We understand Mrs R seeks a significant amount of money and so we consider it reasonable to say this is an important outcome to her.
17. If we were to investigate Mrs R’s complaint and found evidence of failings leading to a worse outcome for Mr R, we may recommend £10,000 in line with level five on our severity of injustice (SOI) scale. Level five injustices include bereavement where we consider the poor service was a significant contributory factor in the death. This level ranges from £3,750 to £12,450.
18. Mrs R is concerned the events contributed to Mr R’s death, which may correspond with this level of injustice. However, we would still need to establish a clear link between any failings and the impacts experienced and this may influence our final recommendation. Therefore, our financial remedy may be lower than this depending on what failings we find and what impact we can link this to.
19. Therefore, Mrs R may be able to achieve more compensation through a legal approach than we might be able to if we were to uphold the complaint. We do not want to injustice Mrs R from achieving more compensation and want to ensure she has the best opportunity to do so.
20. There are several independent and charitable organisations who can assist people who wish to make legal claims against the NHS, and we have shared details of those with Mrs R.
21. Mrs R said she was not willing to pursue the legal route and raised concern about the cost of legal action as she does not have the financial means to pay court costs. She explained she is retired, receiving a pension and state benefits and so she could not afford to pay for court costs.
22. Our decision around the legal route is not solely based on complainant preference. We take this into consideration, as well as other factors. We must consider if it is unreasonable to expect Mrs R to pursue the legal route.
23. Mrs R is aware of ‘no win, no fee’ solicitors, but was concerned she could be unsuccessful in the legal route and would have to pay the costs.
24. We do not consider this would make it unreasonable for Mrs R to pursue a legal route. This is because ‘no win, no fee’ solicitors would only require Mrs R to pay legal fees if her claim was successful. Given the significant amount of compensation sought, we do not consider the costs of legal action disproportionate to this.
25. Mrs R did not tell us about any other barriers to her seeking legal advice.
26. In summary, we understand the impact Mrs R claims is significant. Mrs R is seeking a significant amount of compensation which can be achieved through legal action.
27. Having explored reasonableness, we understand Mrs R is within the time limit to pursue a legal claim and we do not consider there are any barriers to her pursuing this. On this basis, we conclude it is reasonable for Mrs R to explore this avenue first. We believe this is the best option for Mrs R, given the severity of the complaint.
28. If after fully exploring legal action, Mrs R is not able to pursue it or does not achieve all the outcomes she seeks, she can bring the complaint back to us and we will consider it again. At that point, we would need to carefully consider the outcome of any legal enquiries and the time she has taken to bring her complaint back to us. This is because we have a time limit of one year.
1. We have carefully considered Mrs R’s complaint about The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We were sorry to hear of the concerns Mrs R brought to us and for the loss of Mr R. We recognise the profound impact this has had on Mrs R. We do not wish to underestimate how difficult this has been for Mrs R.
2. We have decided to take no further action on Mrs R’s complaint, for the time being at least. This is because we consider it reasonable for her to pursue a legal action on the matter she bought to us.