Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

3. Mrs B complains about aspects of care and treatment she received at a Trust gynaecology appointment on 11 June 2024. Specifically, she says:

• staff inserted something hard into the right side of the vagina during the appointment • something came out of her body and staff would not tell her what this was. She believes she gave birth and the Trust will not take accountability for this.

• staff left her on her side for a few minutes and refused to help her get out of the examination chair.

4. Mrs B says she started to and continues to experience heart problems following the appointment, is unable to carry heavy objects, and is unable to walk long distances without her heart racing. She says she is also suffering with urinary issues and eating. She says the events continue to cause her ongoing emotional distress and she believes she lost her unborn child during the appointment.

5. Mrs B is seeking service improvements and a financial remedy as an outcome to the complaint.

8. 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 discussed this with Mrs B to understand the reasons why she could not do so. We have also considered the time the Trust has taken to respond to Mrs B.

9. The events Mrs B complains about happened on 11 June 2024. For us to consider whether a complaint is out of time, we look at the date at which Mrs B could be expected to be aware of the concerns raised. Mrs B says this is the same date when the events happened in June 2024.

10. To be within our time limit Mrs B would have needed to bring her complaint to us by 11 June 2025. She complained to us on 17 July 2025. Her complaint is five weeks outside our time limit. We asked Mrs B why she did not bring her complaint to us sooner.

11. Mrs B says the reasons for the delay in her raising a formal complaint was because she was scared given the events outlined in her complaint. She says the family then left the UK to spend the school summer holidays abroad. She says on her return to the UK in September, she felt there was a deterioration in her symptoms that continued to cause her distress. She then raised a complaint on 8 October.

12. Mrs B raised a follow up complaint promptly the same day the Trust issued its first response on 1 April 2025.

13. When the Trust issued its second response dated 9 June, Mrs B did not refer the complaint to us until a month later on 17 July. Mrs B was unable to give us her reasons for the delay in referring the complaint to us after the Trust’s final response and feels she did not waste any time in doing so.

14. We recognise how distressing the events were and continue to be for Mrs B.

15. We acknowledge that eight months of the time since the events was taken up with the Trust’s investigation of her complaint.

16. But we also consider Mrs B could have raised a formal complaint sooner than she did in October 2024 and could have referred the complaint to us sooner than she did in July 2025.

17. We are not persuaded Mrs B has given sufficient reasons for the delay for us to put the time limit to one side. She could have raised her complaint sooner, for instance before she went on holiday or immediately upon her return. We will therefore take no further action on her complaint.

18. Once again, we are sorry to hear about the problems Mrs B experienced during her gynaecology appointment, and the impact that had on her. We are grateful to Mrs B for bringing her concerns to our attention.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs B’s complaint about Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (the Trust). The complaint falls outside of our time limit and we have decided there is no good reason for us to put our time limit aside to consider it further.

2. We are sorry to hear about Mrs B’s experience and the impact the events as outlined in the complaint had on her. We acknowledge how upsetting and distressing this time was for Mrs B. We understand our decision may be disappointing, but we will explain the reasons for this and the factors we have considered in our primary investigation of her complaint.