"I was drawn into the formal complaints process without my agreement"

I initially contacted PALS with some questions and concerns. Instead of offering support or checking how I wanted to proceed, the team treated this as a formal complaint without my consent. I did not feel I had any real choice but to go along with it.

Because the complaints team treated my questions as a formal complaint, I never had a real opportunity to submit a proper one. I was still trying to gather the information I needed to understand what had happened, but my Stage 1 complaint ended up being framed as a list of questions rather than a full account. That meant the process began on weak foundations.

I was also told I could not meet with the complaints team unless I provided all further questions in advance. This made it hard to speak freely or raise issues that emerged naturally.

Worse still, once my concerns were in the complaints process, clinical teams refused to deal with issues that were clearly clinical, saying they now sat with the complaints team. This created confusion and meant that important clinical matters were left unresolved and remain unresolved.

As a result, I never met with the complaints team, my complaint was not properly investigated, serious learning opportunities were missed, and my clinical care suffered. Despite this, I was later labelled as vexatious after my advocate asked questions, during a care review, about clinical aspects regarding the issues TEWV had siloed into the complaints process.

To put this behaviour by the Trust in wider context, I believe that an FOI on WDTK website shows that in 2018–2019, only 7.5% of complaints at TEWV were fully upheld, and nearly 60% were not upheld at all. This was during a period when major failings at the Trust have since come to light, so you would expect much higher uphold rates. In fact, TEWV had one of the lowest uphold rates among similar NHS trusts.

I’m sharing this because others in similar situations may feel isolated or blamed. A complaints process should not prevent clinical care or shut people out for asking fair questions. It should also not close down opportunities to learn from situations that have caused significant clinical harm and point to systemic failings.