A practice in the City of Brighton and Hove area

3. Ms B attended the Practice in 2020 and 2021 for fertility assessments. She says during this time, the Practice failed to tell her about having low AMH levels.

4. Ms B says it was a big shock to find her AMH levels were too low for IVF and this affected her and her partner’s mental health. She explained she had to pay for private treatment and she was signed off work. She says she felt ignored and has lost trust in her GP.

5. Ms B wants the Practice to recognise what it got wrong and how this affected her.

8. 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 there is a good reason to.

9. Ms B found out about her low AMH levels in December 2021 after attending a consultation at a fertility clinic. This is the date she became aware of a problem with the Practice.

10. To be within our time limit, Ms B needed to come to us by December 2022. Ms B came to us in February 2023, making her complaint two months outside our time limit. We looked at the reasons for the delay and if there is a good reason why she could not come to us sooner.

11. Ms B complained to the Practice on 27 June 2022, six months after realising there was a problem. The Practice replied on 12 October. Ms B replied to the Practice on 13 December. The Practice replied again on 6 January 2023, completing the complaints process.

12. Ms B said she did not go to the Practice earlier because she was in shock and she was prioritising her IVF treatment. While we sympathise with Ms B, there would have been opportunity to complain to the Practice sooner. There was a six month period where Ms B did not take any action to make her complaint.

13. We have decided not to put the time limit to one side and investigate the complaint. We hope this statement clearly explains the reasons for our decision.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Ms B’s complaint about a practice in the Brighton and Hove area (the Practice). We are sorry to learn about how Ms B was affected by the Practice not telling her about having low anti-mullerian hormone levels (AMH are hormones made by cells in the ovarian follicles).

2. We are not investigating the complaint as it was brought to us outside our 12 month time limit, and we have not seen good reasons to put the time limit to one side.