An independent provider in the Merton area

4. Ms M complains about the care and treatment the organisation provided her mother on 24 and 25 November 2023 and 1 December 2023. Specifically, she complains:

• carers did not change the water in her mother’s RIG (a type of feeding tube inserted through the abdomen into the stomach, held in place by a balloon filled with sterile water) balloon when the specialist nurse was on duty to support them • a carer commenced a feed through the RIG when it was not safe to do so and did not flush the RIG after stopping the feed • a carer called an ambulance and left their contact number with the ambulance service but did not update the contact details with the ambulance service when they finished their shift • staff did not maintain accurate fluid balance charts • a carer administered the wrong volume of fluid through her mother’s RIG • there was no nurse available to speak to when she tried to escalate concerns about her mother’s care.

5. Ms M said her mother’s RIG was blocked which required her to go to hospital on 24 November. Her mother was dehydrated and had been without nutrition, hydration and medication for 12 hours. Her mother developed diarrhoea following her A&E attendance and was very distressed. On 1 December, Ms M told us her mother felt like she was choking which was very distressing.

6. Ms M told us she has a disability and multiple health conditions. At the time of these events, she was recovering from sepsis. Ms M explained she does not provide any care to her mother because of her disabilities, but she must interject when things go wrong, which should not happen.

7. By bringing this complaint to us, Ms M seeks an apology and explanation from the organisation, service improvements and financial remedy.

9. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to us within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to us after one year, unless we consider there is a good reason to do so. We have discussed this with Ms M to understand the reasons why she could not do so. We have also considered the time Ms M was waiting to receive a response from the organisation.

10. Ms M complains about events that happened on 24 and 25 November 2023, and 1 December 2023. Ms M told us she was aware of the events at the time they occurred as she raised her concerns about her mother’s care on both occasions. We consider 1 December 2023 to be Ms M’s date of knowledge. In line with the law, Ms M should have brought her complaint to us by 1 December 2024.

11. Ms M submitted her complaint to us in three complaint forms on 16 August 2025, 5 September 2025 and 19 September 2025. This means her complaint is out of time by approximately nine months.

12. When a complaint is brought to us outside our time limit, we consider if there are reasons to put the time limit aside. In making this decision we consider the length of time it took the organisation to complete local resolution. We also consider the reasons the complainant has given us for why the complaint is outside our time limit, and any barriers they faced in complaining to us.

13. Ms M and her sister both complained to the organisation about events on 24 and 25 November on 27 November 2023. Ms M complained to the organisation about events on 1 December 2023 on that day.

14. Ms M contacted the organisation to chase her complaint raised in November 2023 on 1 May 2024 and 14 June 2025. She contacted the organisation to chase her complaint raised on 1 December 2023, on 16 August 2025.

15. We have not found evidence the organisation responded to these complaints. We previously contacted the organisation to ask if it had responded to Ms M’s complaint and it sent us copies of two complaint responses. Ms M told us these responses relate to separate complaints she and her family had raised with the organisation.

16. We asked Ms M the reasons for not chasing the organisation or contacting us sooner about this complaint. We have carefully considered these reasons.

17. Ms M told us she is neurodivergent and takes things literally. She told us the organisation had told her it would investigate and respond to these complaints and she believed it. She said by June 2025 she realised a complaint response was not forthcoming. She chased the organisation as she wanted to give it one final chance to respond before complaining to us.

18. Ms M said, in good faith, she was waiting for the organisation to respond before bringing her complaint to us. She explained she has raised other complaints with us, and we have previously told her we will not look at a complaint until she has received a complaint response from the organisation. Ms M said we had previously told her we would not chase an organisation on her behalf, so she assumed she needed to wait for the organisation to respond to her complaint before coming to us.

19. Ms M told us she is not an able-bodied person and suffers with chronic fatigue. She told us this puts her at a disadvantage when making complaints, as writing emails takes time. Ms M said it is not fair for somebody with chronic fatigue to have to keep chasing a complaint when the organisation has said they will investigate and respond. Ms M said the organisation were aware of her disabilities.

20. We appreciate Ms M was waiting for the organisation to respond to her complaint and we understand her frustration that it did not.

21. We have looked at the correspondence we have had with Ms M in relation to our time limit previously. During a phone call on 12 January 2024, we advised Ms M of our time limit. During another phone call on 31 January 2024, we explained to Ms M an organisation has six months to respond to a complaint. On that occasion we also agreed to contact an organisation before six months on Ms M’s behalf, to ask it to respond to Ms M.

22. In an email on 10 May 2024 about a different complaint, we said we would not consider a complaint if Ms M did not yet have a full complaint response from the organisation she was complaining about. We also said Ms M should normally complain to us within a year of when she first became aware of her complaint. We explained we can put the time limit to one side if we think it is reasonable to do this and in making this decision we consider her reasons for not complaining earlier and how long the local complaints process took.

23. We can see from the correspondence we have had with Ms M relating to other complaints we have told her we give an organisation six months to respond to a complaint. We also previously informed her about our time limit. Given this, we consider Ms M should have been aware she could contact us when the organisation had not responded to her complaints by June 2024, as six months had passed with no response. Ms M would have been aware that after six months without a response we would contact the organisation for an update on when it would be responding to the complaining.

24. Ms M told us at the time of the events occurring she was recovering from sepsis. She told us she had been under the care of an infectious diseases team due to pyrexia (high temperature) with an unknown cause. We appreciate Ms M’s ill health and sepsis recovery. We can see she was able to contact us about other complaints during this time. Ms M contacted us by email and phone regarding other complaints in January, February, March, July, August, September, November and December 2024.

25. Ms M told us she underwent surgery in 2025. She told us since May 2025 she has also been managing police and legal affairs arising from allegations the organisation made against her. We note her complaint was already over our time limit at this point.

26. Ms M also said she had multiple complaints open at the time of this complaint and her other complaints took priority due to their severity. She said if she did not have other complaints open, she would have brought this complaint to us sooner but given her limited resources, she had to prioritise the complaints she had raised.

27. We appreciate Ms M’s concerns about her mother’s care and recognise the distress experienced by both Ms M and her mother which resulted in Ms M making several complaints. While we appreciate the work involved in this, as Ms M was able to progress other complaints, we cannot see any barriers which prevented her from progressing this one.

28. We consider Ms M could have complained to us sooner than she did. Ms M’s complaint is out of time as she complained to us more than one year after the events occurring. Unfortunately, the reasons Ms M has provided are not sufficient for us to set aside the time limit and we will not be taking any further action on this complaint.

29. We thank Ms M for bringing her complaint to us for consideration.

1. We have carefully considered Ms M’s complaint about a care provider in London and the Southeast of England (the organisation). We are sorry to learn of Ms M’s concerns about the care provided to her mother in November and December 2023.

2. The complaint falls outside of our time limit. We have decided we do not have good reason for us to put our time limit aside to consider the complaint further.

3. We understand this is not the outcome Ms M is hoping for. We are sorry to hear about the circumstances of her complaint and to learn of the distress she and her mother both experienced.