Summary: Ms X complains about Derbyshire County Council and Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. She says the organisations acted with fault when she was detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act in 2022. Ms X’s complaint is late and there are not enough good reasons for the Ombudsmen to investigate it now.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the actions of Derbyshire County Council (the Council) and Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) in early 2022, when she was detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983. Specifically, Ms X complains that:
1. the Council and Trust did not properly consider the impact of a physical illness on her mental health symptoms when assessing her and deciding to apply for the detention and
2. the Council and Trust did not properly consider alternatives that were less restrictive than hospital detention.
2. Ms X says that she was wrongly imprisoned in hospital and this has had a serious and lasting harmful impact on her health and wellbeing. She says the experience has left her fearful and distrustful of doctors and hospitals. She believes her partner would still be alive if she had not been detained.
3. Ms X’s key desired outcomes are:
• to have her detention removed from her hospital record; and
• a thorough report into the reasons for her detention.

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The Ombudsmen’s role and powers

4. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and Health Service Ombudsman have the power to jointly consider complaints about health and social care. (Local Government Act 1974, section 33ZA, as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 18ZA).
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something an organisation has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 9(4).)
6. Ms X has complained about other, related, issues. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) is considering these separately because they are about matters the Trust alone is responsible for.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I have considered information Ms X, the Council and the Trust have provided in writing. Ms X has had an opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision. I considered Ms X’s comments before reaching a final decision.

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What I found

8. Ms X became aware of the problems she complains about in early 2022. Her hospital detention ended in March 2022 and she then went home. She complained to the Ombudsmen in April 2024, more than two years after she first became aware of the problems. This means that her complaint is late.
9. The time limit in law for bringing complaints to the Ombudsmen exists for good reasons. It is there to give us the best opportunity to make robust, fair and evidence-based decisions on complaints. The longer after an event an investigation starts, the more difficult it can be to find out the relevant facts, get accurate recollections from those involved, and reach a sound decision.
10. I have carefully considered whether there are any good reasons to investigate the complaint now, despite it being late. In doing so, I have taken the following information into account.
• Ms X has explained that she did not complain to the Trust until May 2023 because between March 2022 and May 2023, she was seriously ill and recovering from her hospital admission. She was also grieving the loss of a loved one.
• Ms X’s records state she has significant chronic health problems. Ms X explained that, after she came home from hospital in March 2022, she continued to have significant physical health problems affecting her ability to go through a complaints process. These did not improve until after treatment in March 2023. Therefore, it is unlikely Ms X could have started complaining earlier than May 2023, when she started the Trust’s complaints process.
• There was a delay in the Trust’s complaints process. It did not respond to Ms X’s complaint until March 2024. Ms X complained to the Ombudsmen without delay after getting the Trust’s response.
• I have reviewed Ms X’s medical records for the period she complains of, and they do not indicate any procedural faults in relation to the complaints I am considering. It has now been more than two and a half years since the events Ms X complains about. The professionals involved are unlikely to be able to remember the events well enough to provide meaningful responses to our enquiries, beyond what is in Ms X’s medical records. This would affect the fairness and reliability of an investigation. It also means that an investigation would be unlikely to achieve Ms X’s desired outcome of providing a thorough explanation of the reasons for her detention, beyond what is already in her medical records and what the Trust explained in its response to the complaint.
• The Ombudsmen cannot require the Council and Trust to remove Ms X’s detention from her medical records.
11. Having taken all the above into account, my view is there are not enough good reasons to investigate the complaint now. Ms X has provided powerful explanations for the delay in starting the complaints process. But, they do not outweigh the strong likelihood that we would be unable to:
• conduct a fair investigation or achieve a robust conclusion because of the time that has passed; or
• achieve her desired outcomes.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is late and there are not enough good reasons to investigate it now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman