In recent days we have received the final response from our trust following the complaints procedure. We submitted our initial complaint in August 2023. It has been a long road. We've now exhausted the complaints process.
Our trust have ultimately advised "we have taken this seriously and recognise the petition you have highlighted to our trust along with all the information to support this. We are working towards the storage of fetal imaging and looking at requirements that are needed to enable us to do this as a trust".
We're still not confident or assured this will be delivered by our trust. This issue is also far bigger than just us or our trust. We feel we need to push further. We've now exhausted the complaints procedure with NHSE also.
We will now approach the Health Service Ombudsman to see if they will review our material and concerns. We’re mindful they now only investigate the most serious cases, alongside cases that will have the biggest impact on improving public services for everyone. We hope when our complaint is assessed the potential “impact” for everyone is recognised in our material. We’ve certainly laboured these issues in our complaint which is already prepared.
We’ve reviewed “Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (Ref: P-001766) Statement | 20 January 2023” on;
https://decisions.ombudsman.org.uk/search?jurisdiction=health
(Just search “FASP”) Summary: Ms P complains the Trust missed opportunities during antenatal scans to identify that her son had a heart condition.
The FASP handbook was referenced repeatedly. Whilst this decision was closed after initial enquiries, much of our content was not known or considered in this judgement. We have tailored our complaint accordingly.
Once we’ve prepared our supporting material we’ll send this off in the coming days. The Ombudsman site advises that current wait times are up to 7 months for complaints about the NHS.