North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust

4. Ms P complains about the care and treatment she received from the Trust in August 2024 during a colonoscopy. She says the Trust breached her consent during the procedure.

5. Ms P says as a result of the Trust’s actions, her mental wellbeing and sleep have been adversely affected.

6. Ms P is seeking an explanation and service improvements.

7. Ms P underwent a colonoscopy on 1 August 2024 and was unhappy with the procedure. She complained on 1 August 2024 about breach of her consent during the procedure.

8. The Trust responded on 25 October 2024 and signposted Ms P to the Ombudsman. Ms P submitted a follow-up complaint on 20 May 2025.

9. The Trust responded to Ms P’s follow-up complaint on 7 August 2025.

10. Ms P brought her complaint to us on 14 November 2025.

13. 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.

Dates of events and knowledge

14. Ms P complained the Trust breached her consent during a colonoscopy procedure on 1 August 2024. In particular, she says she had asked clinical staff to stop the procedure because she was in severe pain and even though she was listened to initially, the clinicians resumed the procedure without obtaining her consent to resume.

15. Ms P would have been aware she had reason to complain about her colonoscopy procedure on 1 August 2024 as the issues that gave rise to her complaint arose during the procedure itself. This means she should have complained to us by 1 August 2025. We received her complaint on 14 November 2025. This means, Ms P’s complaint is out of time by three months.

Consideration of reasons for delay

16. As set out above, Ms P’s date of knowledge for her complaint about consent during her colonoscopy was 1 August 2024.

17. We have considered Ms P’s reasons for the delay in progressing her complaint with the Trust, and separately, her delay in coming to us.

18. With regards to Ms P’s complaint to the Trust, we can see that she made a formal complaint on the same day as her procedure and the Trust issued a final response on 25 October 2024. However, Ms P submitted a further complaint almost seven months after the Trust’s response in October 2024.

19. We asked Ms P to explain the reasons for the delay in progressing her complaint between October 2024 and May 2025. She said she was waiting for the Trust’s response to her request for a copy of internal notes and emails pertaining to her colonoscopy, as she wanted to understand what happened during the procedure compared to what was recorded in the Trust’s records.

20. Ms P also says even though she received a final response from the Trust in October 2024, she felt her complaint was unresolved due her outstanding request for the Trust’s internal records. She says when her follow-up complaint was accepted in May 2025, she thought the complaints process was ongoing.

21. Having considered all the evidence, we are not persuaded there is good reason to set aside our time limit. Ms P initially requested access to her medical records and the Trust’s internal emails in November 2024 and we can see the Trust formally acknowledged her request in March 2025. Ms P chased further for this information on 1 April 2025, stating, that she would take the matter up with the Ombudsman if she did not receive a response within seven days. She emailed the Trust again on 30 April 2025 and submitted her follow-up complaint in May 2025.

22. We consider that the crux of Ms P’s complaint to us, concerning lack of consent during her colonoscopy, had already been addressed in the Trust’s initial response in October 2024. Ms P was signposted to our service in the Trust’s response letter and could have contacted us earlier about her complaint about lack of consent.

23. We appreciate Ms P was trying to gather further information from the Trust pertaining to their internal notes and how important it was for her to see what the Trust had recorded about her procedure and consent. However, the information Ms P was requesting would not have altered her main complaint that her consent was not sought throughout her colonoscopy procedure on 1 August 2024 and we note that to date, Ms P has still not received the internal emails she requested from the Trust.

24. Ms P has not provided any compelling reasons for the seven-month delay in pursuing her complaint after the Trust had already responded to the crux of her complaint in October 2024.

25. With regards to Ms P’s delay in complaining to us, we expect complainants to complain to us as soon as possible after receiving a final response from the organisation. The Trust issued its final response on 7 August 2025, and Ms P complained to us on 14 November 2025. We asked Ms P to explain the three-month delay in complaining to our service.

26. Ms P said between August 2025 and November 2025 she was dealing with health challenges, including seeking counselling support, difficult family circumstances and a close family bereavement. Ms P provided evidence of a counselling referral in September 2025 and confirmation that she was on a waiting list for counselling in October 2025.

27. We are sympathetic to the difficult challenges Ms P faced with her health and her family life. We recognise how difficult it would have been during this time.

28. As Ms P had already been signposted to our service on two occasions by August 2025, we consider she could have contacted us to inform us of her complaint or sought assistance from an advocacy service, if she was not able to complain herself due to ill health.

29. By the time Ms P had received the Trust’s response on 7 August 2025, she had already exceeded our 12-month time limit by a few days. While we appreciate Ms P’s comment that she was not aware of our time limit, information on our time limit is widely publicised on our website.

30. We have considered the time the Trust took to respond to Ms P’s complaint. The Regulations say the organisation investigating a complaint should send the complaint response ‘within the relevant period’. It defines this as ‘the period of six months commencing on the day on which the complaint was received’.

31. We can see it took the Trust approximately two to three months to respond to each of Ms P’s complaints. As such, we consider the Trust provided timely responses and this was not the reason for Ms P’s complaint being out of time.

32. Having considered all of Ms P’s reasons, we are not persuaded there is good enough reason to set aside our time limit. The reasons she has provided do not justify the extent of the delay in the complaint reaching us.

Overall conclusions

33. Mrs P’s complaint was brought to us outside of our time limit. For the reasons set out above, we do not see sufficient reason to set aside our time limit to one side.

34. We recognise there were factors that might have made it more difficult for Ms P to complain. We do not think these were significant enough to explain the long delay in following up with her complaint between October 2024 and May 2025.

35. We are very sorry to hear about Ms P’s ongoing distress caused by her complaint, and we understand how much this complaint means to her.

1. We have carefully considered Ms P’s complaint about North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We have decided the complaint falls outside of our time limit. Therefore, we propose to take no further action. We acknowledge that this will be disappointing for Ms P and would like to reassure her that our decision was reached with careful consideration of the evidence she provided.

2. We acknowledge Ms P’s concerns about her future care as a result of her experience with the Trust.

3. We have taken Ms P’s concerns seriously and carefully considered them. However, Ms P’s complaint was brought to us outside of our time limit and we have not seen sufficient reasons to set our time limit to one side. We acknowledge our decision will be disappointing for Ms P.