A practice in the Cumberland area

5. Mrs I complains about aspects of the care and treatment provided to her by a GP Practice in Cumbria (the Practice) between 4 January and 22 September 2022. Specifically, she says that she was initially unable to have a face-to-face appointment, having to wait seven months in total. She also says she the Practice did not refer her for diagnostic scans when it should have.

6. Mrs I says that as a result of this, a fracture was undiagnosed for a long time, and she has had to give up her job due to the pain. Mrs I says her household is now struggling on a single wage, and she says she has mobility issues together with other lasting complications.

7. Mrs I wants a financial remedy.

8. Mrs I injured her back at work in January 2022. She says at the time she tried to obtain a face-to-face GP appointment at her GP Practice, but she did not see a GP until September 2022.

9. During this time Mrs I says the Practice only gave her pain medication. In October 2022 Mrs I was told she had a fractured spine.

11. The law says that a complaint should be brought to us within one year of the complainant becoming aware of their reason to complain. We cannot consider complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

12. A complaint should normally have completed a local resolution process to be considered ready for us to look at it further.

13. Mrs I became aware of her reason to complain in October 2022 when she received her diagnosis in October 2022. This means to comply with our time limit she should have complained to us by October 2023.

14. Mrs I complained to the Practice in July 2023, and it began a local resolution process. The Practice had changed ownership during the time between the events and the complaint. It explained it had changed ownership, and it directed Mrs I to the two organisations where she should raise her complaint to in July, October and December 2023.

15. We have seen no issue with the way the Practice initially handled the complaint, or the time it took to provide its responses. It promptly provided Mrs I with the relevant information to raise her complaints to the correct organisations, following the change in ownership.

16. Mrs I initially approached us in February 2024 however local resolution had not been completed as she had not contacted the organisations recommended. We explained that we could not consider her complaint at this time.

17. Mrs I returned to us in April 2024 having had a response from both organisations.

18. We allocated the complaint to a caseworker in August. They explained to Mrs I it was reasonable for her to explore taking legal action, based on the financial remedy she was seeking. Mrs I then returned to us in June 2025, over nine months later.

19. We have discussed this with Mrs I to understand the reasons she could not complain to us sooner than she did. We have also considered how much the time the Practice took to respond to her contributed to the delay.

20. Based on the information we have seen so far, Mrs I is 20 months out of time. On her complaint form, Mrs I advised us that the reason for the delay in bringing the complaint to us was due to the length of time it took to see a GP face-to-face, along with the physical impact of her injury.

21. We have considered any potential delays caused by the organisations in waiting for their formal written responses. We have seen the Practice gave Mrs I accurate information on where to complain promptly and the organisations’ responses were provided in writing within six months in line with the expectations set out in complaint handling guidance.

22. We discussed the reasons for the delay with Mrs I again. Mrs I could not provide any further information and advised that she would provide more context via email. Unfortunately, she was unable to do so.

23. We requested evidence of any mitigating circumstances from Mrs I on the telephone on 28 October and 27 November. We also requested the same via email on 28 October, 6 and 19 November 2025.

24. Mrs I took nine months to return to us after we closed her complaint and advised her to pursue alternate legal remedy. We have not seen any justification for such a long delay. For these reasons, we do not consider Mrs I has provided a reason for why we should set aside our time limit.

25. We have not identified any mitigating or exceptional circumstances which would allow us to set the time limit aside for Mrs I’s complaint, and for this reason we are unable to consider her concerns.

26. We recognise this will be disappointing for Mrs I, given the impact this has had on her wellbeing. We hope our explanation clearly sets out the reasons for our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs I’s complaint about a GP Practice in Cumbria (the Practice).

2. We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit. We have carefully considered the reasons for the delay but we have not identified any good reason to set the time limit aside to consider the complaint further. We will explain our reasons for this decision below.

3. Complaints give us valuable insight into the organisations we investigate, so we would like to thank Mrs I for sharing her experience with us.

4. It is important to acknowledge that although we are unable to look at the concerns she has raised, this does not detract from the experience Mrs I had, or the impact this had on her.