Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

4. Mr K complains about aspects of the care and treatment provided by the Trust to his father, Mr L, on 14 July 2024. He says:

• there was a delay before his father was assessed by a doctor in the Emergency Department (ED) • there was a delay sending his father for an X-ray • there was a delay to administer his father with antibiotics.

5. His father sadly died on 14 July 2024. Mr K believes that with earlier and appropriate treatment his death could have been prevented. Mr K says this has caused him and his family a great deal of distress.

6. To resolve his complaint, Mr K seeks disciplinary action against the on-call doctor and apologies from the Trust for its failings.

9. The law gives us our powers to investigate complaints about NHS services in England. Section 9(4) of this Act says we should not investigate a complaint if it is brought to us more than one year after the person became aware of the issues, unless we consider it reasonable to do so.

10. When Mr K completed his complaint form to us, he documented 14 July 2024 as the date he became aware he had a reason to complain. This is what we call date of knowledge (DOK).

11. For Mr K’s complaint to have been made within our time limit, he would have needed to bring the complaint to us by 14 July 2025, within 12 months of the DOK.

12. Mr K submitted his complaint to us on 19 October 2025, over 3 months outside of our 12-month time limit.

13. We spoke with Mr K to understand why he was unable to bring his complaint to us sooner. We also considered the time it took the Trust to respond. The timeline and our considerations are set out below.

14. From the information provided, we note that Mr K complained to the Trust on 6 August 2024. The Trust issued its final response on 6 March 2025. Following receipt of that response, Mr K took a further 7 months to bring his complaint to us. We note that, if Mr K had brought his complaint to us shortly after receiving the Trust’s final response, he would have been within the 12-month time limit.

15. Mr K confirmed that he had read the Trust’s final response and was aware of the final paragraph explaining that if he remained unhappy with the response he could raise a complaint with us. The Ombudsman contact number and website address had been provided.

16. Mr K explained that he had sought advice from Cloverleaf Advocacy Service. Following their advice, he brought his complaint to us in October. He said he could not recall exactly why there had been such a delay, but stated that he had been completing forms during that period. When I explored this with Mr K, he said he had contacted the General Medical Council (GMC) to raise concerns about the on-call doctor who had treated his father in the ED.

17. During this period, Mr K was actively raising concerns with the GMC and we do not see any reason that would have prevented him from contacting us. Therefore, we do not consider that there is a reasonable explanation for the delay in bringing the complaint to us. For the reasons we have explained, we have decided not to set our time limit aside.

18. From speaking with Mr K, it is clear what happened to Mr L had a profound impact on his life, and we know how important this complaint is to him. We are very grateful to Mr K for bringing his complaint to us and for speaking with us so openly about what happened.

1. We have carefully considered Mr K’s complaint about the Trust. We are very sorry and deeply saddened to read about the death of his father, Mr L. We extend our sincere condolences to Mr K and his family for their loss.

2. We have decided not to consider Mr K’s complaint further. This is because the complaint falls outside of our time limit. We carefully considered the reasons Mr K gave for this and we do not see sufficient reason to set our time limit aside. We explain the reasons for this decision in this statement.

3. We recognise and are grateful for the time and effort that has gone into making this complaint. Our decision in no way diminishes the seriousness of the concerns raised or the distress these events have caused Mr K and his family.