University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

3. Mr X complains about aspects of care and treatment the Trust provided to his son in 2025. Mr X specifically says:

• The Trust made a critical error in following specialist preferences rather than the standard NICE guideline NG217 for the management of his son’s status epilepticus. Status epilepticus is a medical emergency where a seizure lasts more than 5 minutes, or a person has multiple seizures in a row without waking up in between.

• The Trust chose to use non-sedating drugs to maintain neurological monitoring of Mr A.

• The Trust gave conflicting advice about Mr A’s surgery and prognosis. Prior to his operation in February 2025, Mr A had been told by other neurosurgical teams that his tumour was inoperable. However, a named doctor provided a success rate of 85–90%.

• There was a significant delay between a CT scan and MRI scan in June 2025 which confirmed the progression of Mr A’s condition.

4. Mr X says the failings led to his son’s untimely death. He says this and the unanswered questions around the clinical decision-making caused him and other members of Mr A’s family significant emotional distress.

5. As an outcome of this complaint Mr X would like acknowledgement, accountability and financial compensation.

8. The Health Service Commissioners Act says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to get an answer to their concerns by taking legal action, unless we consider this is unreasonable in the circumstances.

9. We have discussed this with Mr X to understand his circumstances and the outcomes he wants. Mr X told us he has instructed a solicitor to commence legal action against the Trust, that the solicitor has accepted the case, and the legal process is still currently ongoing.

10. We can see there is a legal course of action available as Mr X is already in the process of pursuing that route and has secured legal representation. Mr X has made a legal claim for clinical negligence for the issues he has raised. Negligence, in law, is an act or failure to act (omission), that does not meet the level of appropriate care expected, which results in injury or loss. If a doctor or health professional is negligent when giving you medical treatment, this is called ‘clinical negligence’.

11. We are satisfied there is an alternative legal route that Mr X is pursuing, which may provide the outcomes he seeks, and we can see there are no barriers to him making a legal claim as it has been accepted by a solicitor. In view of this, we are not able to take any further action.

12. If Mr X’s circumstances change in such a way that it is no longer reasonable for him to take legal action and he still has unresolved issues or outcomes that cannot be considered or remedied by the courts, he can ask us to consider his complaint again. If he does decide to return to us, he should bring his complaint back to us promptly. This is because we would need to consider our own time limits for a person to complain to us, in line with the ‘Health Service Commissioners Act 1993’.

13. We are very sorry to hear about Mr A’s sad death and how this has affected Mr X and other family members. We thank Mr X for bringing his concerns to us and hope this statement clearly explains why we will not be considering his concerns further.

1. We have carefully considered Mr X’s complaint about University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (the Trust). Mr X complained about aspects of care and treatment the Trust provided to his son, Mr A. Mr X complains about failings in care that he believes contributed to his son’s sad death. We were very sorry to hear about the impact his loss has had and continues to have.

2. We have decided to take no further action at this time because we consider it is reasonable for Mr X to continue to explore taking legal action on the issues he brought to us. We explain further below.