Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

3. Miss O complains that in August and September 2024 Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) was negligent in the care provided to her father. She says her father fell whilst in hospital and sustained a serious fracture. She adds the Trust then operated on her father whilst he had pneumonia.

4. She says this negligence caused her father’s death.

5. Miss O would like answers to the questions she still has about her father’s death and a financial remedy.

7. The law that gives us our powers to investigate complaints about NHS services is the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993. This law tells us what we can and cannot look into, and how we should undertake our investigations.

8. In line with Section 4 of this legislation, we cannot investigate complaints where the person can achieve a remedy via proceedings in a court of law. In some cases, we may consider it unreasonable to expect a person to take legal action, and the law gives us the discretion to investigate these complaints if we consider it appropriate to do so.

9. Miss O may have a claim for medical negligence which she could pursue via the courts. To consider whether Miss O may have a legal route available to her via a medical negligence claim we considered whether the following tests have potentially been met:

• the Trust had a duty of care to her father • there is a claim this duty was breached • there is a claim this breach caused harm.

10. The Trust had a duty of care to Miss O’s father, as it does for all patients using its services.

11. There is a claim this duty was breached, with Miss O stating she believes the Trust was negligent.

12. Miss O claims this breach led to her father’s death, which meets the legal definition of harm in the context of a medical negligence claim.

13. We are satisfied there is a potential legal route available to Miss O. This route could also directly achieve the explanation(s) and financial remedy she is looking for.

14. We have also considered whether it is reasonable to expect her to pursue this action. Unfortunately, despite multiple attempts to contact Miss O we have not been able to speak with her to discuss any barriers to taking legal action. There is also no indication from her written complaint to us and the supporting evidence that could indicate it is not reasonable to expect her to take legal action.

15. In summary, we are satisfied there is a legal route available to Miss O and we have seen no evidence to indicate it would be unreasonable to expect her to resort to that action. For this reason, we cannot take further action on Miss O’s complaint.

16. We recognise how distressing these events must have been for Miss O and we want to reassure her our decision makes no comment on the quality of care provided to her father, nor does it in any way detract from the impact these events had.

1. We have carefully considered Miss O’s complaint and have decided it is reasonable for her to take legal action to resolve her complaint.

2. We recognise these events were very distressing for Miss O and her family, and our decision in no way detracts from this impact.