Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

3. Miss C complains about how doctors investigated her daughter’s health problems when she attended the Hospital’s emergency department in January 2024. She says doctors failed to identify that her daughter had a serious heart problem. They sent her home instead. Sadly, Miss C’s daughter died a few hours later and she questions whether this was avoidable. Miss C says she wants to ensure there is learning from the complaint, but she is also considering taking legal action against the Trust.

5. The law says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances. We have discussed this with Miss C to understand her circumstances and the outcomes she wants. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

6. Miss C told us that she has engaged a solicitor with a view to taking legal action. In view of this we cannot start a detailed investigation of her complaint.

7. If there is a clear reason why Miss C is prevented from taking legal action it is possible we could consider her complaint again. But she would need to contact us without delay because we have a time limit. We do not normally investigate incidents that happened more than a year ago, unless there is a clear reason why a complainant was unable to contact us.

8. We can see how upsetting these events have been for Miss C. We are sorry we cannot help her on this occasion.

1. We have carefully considered Miss C’s complaint about the Trust. Miss C complains about aspects of the care and treatment clinicians from one of the Trust’s hospitals (the Hospital) gave to his daughter in January 2024. She believes failings led to her daughter's death. We can see how devastating these events have been for Miss C. We offer her our sincere condolences for her loss.

2. We have decided not to start a detailed investigation because we consider Miss C could take legal action about the matter she brought to us. We recognise this will be disappointing for her.