Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

4. Mrs H complains about the Trust’s transparency about events that took place concerning her daughter, Miss H’s death in October 2023. Mrs H says the Trust:

• gave inconsistent information about Miss H’s condition • failed to disclose key events and information • created barriers to her accessing Miss H’s medical records • did not maintain clear or transparent clinical notes for Miss H.

5. As a result of the Trust’s actions, Mrs H says the impact has been enormous on her own health and wellbeing. She says she has not been given the answers she needs to try and come to terms with what happened to her daughter, who died very suddenly.

6. To resolve her complaint, Mrs H is seeking service improvements and an apology.

9. 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. We have discussed this with Mrs H to understand the reasons why she did not bring her complaint sooner. We have also considered the time the organisation has taken to respond to Mrs H.

10. Mrs H became aware she had concerns about the Trust and its transparency in November 2023 at the latest when she raised a formal complaint about this to the Trust. For her complaint to be in time, Mrs H would have needed to complain to us by November 2024. As she provided her complaint to us in May 2025, six months outside of our time limit, we considered the reasons for delay.

11. Mrs H raised her complaint with the Trust in November 2023, it provided a response in May 2024. This took approximately six months. Mrs H returned to the Trust with further concerns in January 2025. The Trust sent Mrs H its response two months later at the end of March 2025. Mrs H raised additional concern with the Trust in early April 2025, and it responded in the same month.

12. NHS Complaint Regulations 2009 say the organisation investigating a complaint should respond within six months. We do not consider the time taken by the Trust unreasonable, considering the Regulations, as each time Mrs H complained the Trust responded within six months.

13. We discussed the delay with Mrs H and why she did not return to the Trust until January 2025, eight months after it provided its investigation report in May 2024. Mrs H explained she chose to wait for the inquest to conclude before submitting her further concerns. She confirmed she received the inquest outcome in November 2024.

14. Mrs H received the Trust’s final response in April 2025 and submitted her complaint to us in May 2025. This was six months outside our time limit.

15. We are grateful for the time and work Mrs H has put into providing us with a clear and detailed complaint, and we thank her for this.

16. Having carefully considered the reasons Mrs H shared, we do not think these are sufficient to set our time limit aside.

17. Mrs H’s main reason for the delay was that she chose to wait for the inquest to conclude in November 2024. Mrs H has not shared any further reasons for the delay between November 2024 and January 2025 when she returned to the Trust.

18. We think it would have been reasonable for Mrs H to have taken some action to prevent her complaint from falling outside the time limit. She could have returned to the Trust sooner with her further concerns. Because she did not do so until January 2025, her complaint was already two months outside our time limit by this point.

19. Information on our website explains that a complaint must be made within 12 months of the date a person became aware of the matter. It also explains that normally, if we receive a complaint outside the time limit, we cannot investigate it.

20. In line with our time limit, we expect people to pursue their complaints quickly. This means returning to the Trust without unnecessary delay and, once the Trust has provided its final response, bringing the complaint to us promptly. Because Mrs H chose to wait for the inquest before returning to the Trust, and then did not come to us until May 2025, a year after the Trust completed its investigation report, her complaint fell outside our time limit.

21. To conclude, Mrs H’s complaint about the Trust was brought to us outside our time limit. We do not think the explanations she has given are reason enough to set our time limit to one side.

22. We were very sorry to learn about what happened, and the impact this had on Mrs H. We understand how important the complaint is to her, and we are grateful to her for sharing her concerns.

23. It is important we act within the law, and that we apply our current approach and process fairly and consistently. We are sorry for any upset this decision may cause. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons why we will not be considering the complaint further.

1. We were very sorry to have learned of Mrs H’s concerns about her daughter’s care. We recognise that what happened continues to cause Mrs H considerable ongoing upset and distress, and we extend our condolences to her for her loss.

2. After careful consideration, we have decided not to consider Mrs H’s complaint further as it falls outside of our time limit.

3. We sincerely thank Mrs H for sharing her experience with us. We are very sorry for any disappointment caused by our decision, which we explain in more detail below.