Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

3. Mrs H complains about the service the Trust gave to A between July 2017 and April 2021. She complains:

• the autism spectrum disorder assessment team (ASDAT) did not follow National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines to assess A in the correct timeframe, and • child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) refused to assess A despite receiving 11 referrals.

4. Mrs H says the delay in her son’s diagnosis means he has gone without the appropriate support and treatment he needs from July 2017 to the present day.

5. By bringing this complaint to us, Mrs H wants an apology and for CAMHS to accept its failures. She also wants to be financially reimbursed for A’s private assessment and for service improvements to be made to support patients before they reach a ‘crisis’.

. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after 12 months, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

9. Mrs H says on her complaint form she knew she had reason to complain about the service A received in July 2019.

10. The events Mrs H complains about started in July 2017 when A was first referred for assessment. The Trust confirms A was put on the waiting list in September 2017.

11. We note Mrs H first chased the referral in January 2019. It is reasonable to assume once a significant amount of time had passed (seven months), Mrs H knew she had reason to complain about the delay, as she has explained to us on her complaint form.

12. If we accept the date of Mrs H’s awareness she had reason to complain as July 2019, she had until July 2020 to bring her complaint to us. She brought her complaint to us in March 2022, so it is one year and eight months outside our time limit.

13. We note Mrs H sent her first formal complaint to the Trust on 28 April 2021. This was 21 months after she says she knew she had reason to complain.

14. The Trust has investigated Mrs H’s complaint and provided a final response on 28 February 2022. The Trust took ten months to investigate this complaint. We accept this is a significant amount of time. On receipt of the Trust’s final response, Mrs H complained to us very quickly, in March 2022.

15. The main delay in pursuing the complaint was between July 2019, when Mrs H says she first realised she had reason to complain, and April 2021, when she did complain. When we discussed this with Mrs H, she told us she verbally complained several times before making an official written complaint in April 2021.

16. We sympathise with Mrs H for the difficult situation she has found herself in and do not doubt she has had several difficult conversations with the Trust while trying to get the best outcome for A. But the evidence we have seen shows there was a very long delay before she formally complained to the Trust about her concerns. We do not think it is unreasonable to expect her to have done this sooner and she has not told us of any reason which prevented her doing so.

17. Having considered all the evidence, including Mrs H’s reasons for the delays and the time the Trust took to complete its complaint handling process, we have decided not to extend our time limit. We have decided to take no further action on Mrs H’s complaint.

18. It is important we consider and act within the law and we regret any further upset this decision may cause to Mrs H. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons for our decision and why we will not be considering this complaint further.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mrs H’s complaint about Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are sorry to hear about Mrs H’s experience and the challenges she and her son, A, have faced. We recognise Mrs H has been through a difficult and distressing time.

2. Mrs H’s complaint is outside our 12 month time limit. She has given us her reasons for bringing her complaint to us outside our 12-month time limit and we have kept these in mind. Having considered all the circumstances of the complaint, including what Mrs H has told us, we have not seen sufficient reasons to extend our time limit. So, we will be taking no further action.