19. 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 Miss U to understand the reasons why she feels she could not bring this complaint to us sooner. We have also considered the time each organisation has taken to respond to Miss U.
20. Miss U became aware she had a reason to complain about both Trusts in July 2022 following her cancer diagnosis. This diagnosis confirmed Miss U’s earlier suspicions that the Trusts had missed opportunities for earlier diagnosis and had delayed treatment to prevent her cancer from reaching stage four.
21. Miss U did not bring her complaint to us until June 2025, two years and 11 months later.
22. We acknowledge Miss U’s explanation for the delay in coming to us and appreciate the gravity of the procedure she had to undergo because of her diagnosis. We recognise, from July 2022, she had treatment for cancer. This included surgery in August 2022, which she told us she needed time to recover from.
23. We are sorry to hear about the physical and psychological impacts she told us her treatment had, and how this delayed her return to a normal life. We appreciate her health was a barrier to progressing her complaint at the time.
24. That said, we cannot see Miss U has explained barriers which prevented her from progressing her complaint for the entirety of this period.
25. Miss U stated she started her undergraduate degree in nursing in September 2023 after having deferred this course by a year following her diagnosis in July 2022. Upon consideration of this information, we deem it reasonable for Miss U to have been able to progress her complaint from September 2023.
26. We saw Miss U did not then complain to the organisations involved for over a year. She complained to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in October 2024. She complained to King’s College Hospital NHS Trust in March 2025. By this point, her complaint was outside of our time limit.
27. We recognise Miss U told us she was unable to complain sooner due to her being a student at King’s College Hospital NHS Trust. She only felt able to complain after a breakdown in communication with the organisation regarding her student placement in March 2025, after which she complained a few days later.
28. We do not consider this explains why she could not complain earlier. This is because she was able to engage with formal studies and so cannot see she was unable to raise a complaint due to illness. We do not see her being a student at one of the organisations involved prevented her from being able to make a complaint. Both Trusts would have been obligated to consider her complaint had she raised one.
29. This means we cannot see good reasons to explain the passage in time in Miss U complaining from September 2023. On this basis, we have not seen enough reason to set aside the time limit in this case. As such, we cannot take further action on her complaint.
30. We recognise Miss U has experienced ongoing health issues. She has told us how much this has profoundly affected her. We can see that she has tried to bring this complaint following exhausting local resolution with each of the Trusts. We are sorry that these have not been successful.
31. It is important we consider and act within the confines of the law. We regret any further upset this decision may cause Miss U. We hope this statement clearly sets out the reasons why we will not be pursuing her complaint further.