University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust

3. Miss U complains about aspects of the care and treatment her mother, Mrs A, received from the Trust between December 2023 and February 2024. Specifically, Miss U complains:

• the Trust failed to disclose Mrs A’s MRI results to the family, including the finding she had suffered a stroke • the Trust did not transfer Mrs A to a stroke ward; and • Mrs A was not referred to the stroke pathway.

4. Miss U states, by failing to transfer her mother to an appropriate stroke ward, the Trust caused her mother to suffer from preventable complications such as severe delirium, dehydration, urinary tract infections, constipation, seizures, and a complete loss of mental capacity. Miss U tells her mother’s experience has left the family traumatised and fearful of engaging with the NHS. Miss U says the Trust’s failure to place her mother on the stroke pathway, meant her stroke was not entered into the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP).

5. By bring this complain to us Miss U seeks an acknowledgement and evidence of service improvements.

6. Miss U’s mother was admitted to hospital in December 2023 following seizure and hypothermia.

7. Miss U says she and her family noticed Mrs A was experiencing weakness in her lower limbs. As a result, the family requested an MRI scan. An MRI scan took place in December 2023 .

8. An MRI scan takes detailed pictures of the inside of the body. It is used to help diagnose conditions, plan treatment and check how well treatment is working

9. Miss U says staff did not report the results of an MRI scan, nor did it advise the family Mrs A had suffered a stroke. A stroke is when blood stops flowing to a part of the brain. It can affect things like speech and movement, and take a long time to recover.

10. Mrs A was then assessed by a geriatrician. As a result of this assessment, Mrs A was transferred to a general ward instead of a specialist stroke ward.

11. In January 2024, Miss U explains staff transferred her mother to a community hospital where she says her health continued to decline. Miss U says after the family raised concerns with the consultant in January 2024, staff transferred her mother to a neurological ward. However, because of the delay in providing stroke-specific treatment, the consultant recommended an end-of-life care package in a nursing home in February 2024.

12. Miss U says her mother died at the nursing home in August 2024.

15. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem (the date of knowledge). We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

16. We spoke to Miss U to understand why she was unable to bring her complaint to us sooner. We also considered how long NHS England took to deal with her complaint and how this affected the time it took for her to come to us.

17. In November 2024, Miss U complained to the Trust and asked it to investigate her concerns.

18. When looking at the timeline of this case and Miss U’s letters of complaint we learnt that she first became aware of the issues in February 2024.

19. Miss U explains, her mother should have been sent to the neurological ward in December 2023. This was following Mrs A’s admission to the neurological ward in January 2024 . We can see following discussions in February 2024 Miss U was aware that her mother should have been sent to the neurological ward earlier on.

20. We consider when looking at the timeline of the complaint we cannot accept January 2025 as Miss U’S date of knowledge. We appreciate Miss U said she only became aware of the issues at hand when she received final response in 2025. We consider she had cause to complain when she became aware her mother was not sent to the neurological ward in a timely manner in February 2024.

21. Miss U became aware of the complaint in February 2024 and raised a complaint with the Trust in November 2024, the Trust responded in January 2025, and Miss U approached us in August 2025. We do not consider the Trust final response had an undue impact on the process itself. We consider Miss U’s complaint is approximately five months out of time.

22. We have considered the reasons for the time taken to approach us, as sometimes these delays can be outside of the complainant’s control.

23. Miss U complained to the Trust on 19 November 2024, and the Trust provided its response on 30 January 2025. This means Miss U took nine months to complain to the Trust after she became aware she had reasons to complain.

24. We found the Trust took two months and 11 days to provide its response to Miss U. We consider the Trust provided its response within a reasonable period of time.

25. Miss U in an email dated 27 February 2026 said she was unable to raise her complaint because Miss A remained under NHS care until August 2024. She explained it would have been inappropriate and potentially harmful to escalate a complaint to us during this period while her mother was still under the care of the same Trust whose actions they are questioning.

26. Miss U said she needed to contact solicitors to evidence that she has fully exhausted her options to pursue legal remedy.

27. Miss U said she sent her complaint to us in February 2025. We explained to Miss U we have no record of she coming to us in February 2025.

28. We asked Miss U to provide evidence that she brought her complaint to us in February 2025. She did not provide this evidence following our request.

29. We acknowledge Miss U’s explanation for the delay in coming to us. We found Miss U has not provided clear reasons to persuade us to set our time limit aside. We explain our reasoning below.

30. We have not seen any evidence to suggest the Trust would have provided inappropriate care or treatment to Miss A because a complaint had been raised while she was in its care.

31. We understand pursuing legal remedy is a legal requirement when it is available. Miss U stated she contacted solicitors in May 2024 and June 2025. We recognise Mrs U’s second attempt to seek legal remedy was about four months after she received the Trust’s response.

32. We found Miss U did not provide reasons which caused her delay in seeking legal advice after she received the Trust’s response.

33. We asked Miss U to provide evidence she brought her complaint to us in February 2025. She did not provide this evidence, so we cannot accept she brought the complaint to us at that time. We cannot set aside the time limit because Miss U has not been able to prove to us she initially brought this complaint in February 2026.

34. The law says we should not investigate a complaint if it is brought to us more than one year after the complainant first became aware of their reason to complain, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so.

35. For the reasons above, we do not consider Miss U has provided sufficient reasons to explain the periods of delay that would allow us to waive the time limit in her case. On that basis, we will not carry out a detailed investigation of her complaint.

36. We were very sorry to hear of Mrs U’s experience, and the difficulties she faced during and since the events she complains about occurred. We recognise she and her family have been through a distressing experience and do not doubt the impact this has had, and continues to have, on them. We hope our report reassures Miss U that we have carefully considered the reasons for the delay in bringing the complaint to us.

1. We have carefully considered Miss U’s complaint about a Trust in the North Midlands area (the Trust). After carefully considering the evidence available to us, we have decided Miss U’s complaint falls outside of our one-year time limit and we are not able to set the limit to one side in this case.

2. We were sorry to learn about the events of Miss U’s complaint and how she says it affected her and her family. We understand our decision may be disappointing. We will explain the reasons for this and the factors we have considered in our primary investigation of Miss U’s complaint.