Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

4. Miss Y complains about the care and treatment she received from the Trust during labour in December 1999. She is concerned her son R acquired a brain injury due to the negligent care given to her. She says she was not informed at the time that R had experienced a brain injury, the causation of this or the potential long-term impact.

5. Miss Y considers this injury has impacted on every aspect of R’s life – emotional, physical, mental, social, educational and financial. She said he experiences seizures which impacts on his independence. He is agitated and suffers from anxiety.

6. Miss Y says it has also impacted on her and R’s father. The stress of managing R’s needs has affected their relationship; they are now separated. It has impacted on them financially as they need to support R.

7. Miss Y says she has become depressed, anxious and isolated.

8. Miss Y is seeking financial remedy and service improvements.

9. Miss Y gave birth to R in December 1999. Miss Y said it was a traumatic birth. The consultant informed her R had become a little distressed, suffered a lack oxygen and had experienced a seizure. She says she was told R may have severe brain damage, but this would be indicated by the time he was two years old.

10. Following this, she requested her birth records (which she says she did not receive) and made a complaint to the Trust about the care she received.

11. When R was 13 months old, Miss Y says the Trust told her there was no signs that R had brain damage and it discharged him from the service.

12. In July 2023 Miss Y read a letter from PIP (Personal Independence Payment) to R’s GP. A PIP is a benefit from people aged 16 – 64 who have a long-term illness, disability or mental health condition that affects their daily life and mobility.

13. Miss Y noted the words ‘anoxic encephalopathy’ on this letter. She googled this and understood this indicated R had obtained a brain injury at birth. Anoxic encephalopathy is a type of brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain.

14. Miss Y then accessed R’s NHS app and says she discovered other injuries she was not previously aware of. She then applied for all of R’s medical records, and records from the time of the birth.

15. Miss Y said the Trust were not forthcoming with providing records. Between September and December 2023, Miss Y was in regular contact with the Trust requesting records.

16. In December 2023 Miss Y made her first complaint to the Trust.

17. In April 2024 the Trust provided a response to Miss Y. It directed her to our service if she was unhappy with the response.

18. In May the Trust sent further records to Miss Y.

19. In July 2024, the Trust held a local resolution meeting with Miss Y. Miss Y was expecting a second meeting but was informed the Trust was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting and would not having a further one.

20. The following month, Miss Y made a further complaint to the Trust.

21. The Trust provided a final response in October 2024.

22. In February 2025, R’s father made a verbal complaint to our service. In line with policy, we requested he made the complaint in writing and sent him a complaint form. We closed the case.

23. In July 2025, Miss Y made her complaint to us in writing.

25. Section 9(4) of the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993 (the law) says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

26. We first considered when Miss Y became aware of her reason to complaint, and whether her complaint was made to us in time.

27. Miss Y became aware of her concern in July 2023. This is when she read a letter from PIP which indicated to her that R had received an injury at birth.

28. Miss Y made her first complaint to the Trust five months later. During this time, after dealing with the ‘shock, horror, disbelief, anger and sadness’, she was considering his development and doing research to understand whether the injury at birth could be linked to the issues he experiences.

29. Miss Y said she first made an application to access R’s medical records through his GP. She then, requested his records from the Trust.

30. Despite not receiving all his records, she made her first complaint with the information she had.

31. We consider this is a reasonable amount of time to make her complaint to the Trust and falls within NHS complaint standard of complaining ‘within six months of finding out you have a reason to complain’.

32. The Trust provided a response to Miss Y in April 2024. It provided responses to 20 points raised by Miss Y. The letter concludes, ‘you are also entitled to seek advice from the Parliamentary Ombudsman if you remain unhappy with out response’.

33. We consider this is the point Miss Y was made aware of our service and could have brought her complaint to us.

34. Miss Y told us she had not yet received all the records and wanted to have these so she could have a clear picture of what happened during the birth to R, before she progressed her complaint.

35. Miss Y also told us she had no faith in the Trust, dating back to the birth and her complaint following this in 1999.

36. We understand Miss Y reasoning for not bringing the complaint to us in April 2024 when she became aware of us. We also think she was unhappy with the Trust so it would have been a good point to bring her complaint to us.

37. Miss Y said she was not aware of our time limit. We have a front-facing website which provides this information.

38. If we consider this is the point she had received a response from the Trust and had been signposted to us if she was unhappy with the response (which she was). To be within the time limit, stipulated by the law, she needed to come to us by April 2024. She did not bring her complaint to us until July 2024 which is three months outside of the time limit.

39. We know Miss Y did not come to us in April 2024. She went to the Trust to pursue the records she wanted. These were sent to her in May 2024.

40. In July 2024 Miss Y attended a local resolution meeting with the Trust. She was dissatisfied with the outcome. This is would have been with the 12 month time limit and was another opportunity Miss Y could have considered coming to our service.

41. Miss Y made a further complaint to the Trust in September 2024 and received a final response from the Trust in October 2024. She was again signposted to our service.

42. Four months after the final response in February 2025, R’s father contacted our service to make a complaint. Sadly, the law states we must receive complaints in writing. We sent him a complaint form to make a formal complaint in writing. Our records indicate we explained our 12 month time limit to bring a complaint to us.

43. Five months later in July 2025 we received a written complaint from Miss Y. This was two years after the date Miss Y knew she had cause to complain, 15 months after Miss Y being informed of our service and nine months after being informed of our service again.

44. We have considered Miss Y’s reasons for the delay in coming to us after the final response in October 2024.

45. We do not estimate the difficult time she has experienced coming to terms with her son potentially being harmed at birth resulting in life long issues.

46. Miss Y told us about the challenges she was experiencing throughout this time and from realising there was cause to complain. She said she was supporting R in all aspects of his life. She told us about the significant strain and emotional impact her experiences with the Trust had on her herself and R’s father, as well on their relationship.

47. Miss Y said she was unable to read the October 2024 final response initially due to the emotional impact. In January 2025, she said she asked R’s father to take up their complaint with the Ombudsman. She told us she was too stressed and tired of the whole situation, and she needed time away from it.

48. During February and March 2025, Miss Y said she continued to contact the Trust and was looking for answers. She said she spent every spare minute studying the medical records and notes so she would be in a strong position to respond to any further response from the Trust.

49. We understand why Miss Y was spending time going through the records, in her quest to find answers. It is obvious how important this complaint is to her and how much she cares for her son.

50. We do not ask complainants to investigate their issues before coming to us. It is not part of our complaint process, or a requirement of the complainant to search for failings in the records.

51. We think the fact that Miss Y was requesting and scrutinising the records indicates she had reason to believe something had gone wrong and could have raised this with us sooner. The law states complainants must to come to us within 12 months of when they were reasonably able to suspect there was a reason to complain.

52. Despite having received the final response from the Trust in October 2024, Miss Y chose to go back to the Trust in April 2025, rather than coming to us at this point. She said she wanted to give the Trust a final opportunity to be honest and transparent with her.

53. We can appreciate why she did this, but she had already received a final response, been directed to us and had lost all faith it the Trust.

54. We are sorry to hear from Miss Y that between April and June 2025, R’s physical, emotional and mental health deteriorated, and he required a lot of support from her. We are also sorry to hear about the continued stress Miss Y was feeling during this time, alongside the death of R’s grandmother.

55. It is evident through this time, Miss Y continued to consider and was actively working on the complaint, trying to establish what had happened. We consider she could have brought her complaint to us at this point for us to consider the evidence.

56. In July 2025, Miss Y brought her complaint to us. This is nine months after the final response from the Trust. She says was unaware of the time limit and believed she could only bring the complaint to us once the Trust had stopped responding, which it did in April 2025. As detailed above we can see points when the Trust made her aware to contact us and think Miss Y was likely able to come to us sooner.

57. We can also see lengthy gaps from receiving the Trust’s response in October 2024 and from us sending out a complaint form to be completed. We are unable to put these gaps to one side as we consider Miss Y could have brought her complaint to us.

58. We have carefully considered Miss Y’s reasons for delays. We accept this has been a difficult time for her and understand the impact this had on her. We understand she needs to provide a significant level of support to R. We can see this did not prevent her from approaching the Trust. We can also see she had the support of her R’s father to help make a complaint.

59. Having considered Miss Y’s reasons, our view is the complaint is out of time, and we will not take any further action on it.

60. We recognise this will not be the decision Miss Y was hoping for, and that this will be disappointing as she continues to look for answers. We hope our statement sets out the careful consideration we have given to her reasons for delay.

1. We have carefully considered Miss Y’s complaint about Bolton NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are sorry to hear about the traumatic birth experience Miss Y tells us she had, the complications surrounding the birth and the resulting longstanding health implications for her son, R.

2. We have decided not to consider Miss Y’s complaint further. This is because the complaint falls outside of our time limit. We understand the impact Miss Y’s concerns have had on her own emotional wellbeing, and the time it has taken for her to gather and scrutinise evidence. We have not seen strong enough reasons to put our time limit to one side to consider it further.

3. It is important we act within the law. We regret any further upset this decision may cause. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons why we will not be considering the complaint further.