The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the standard of care provided to Mr C. This is because we could not add to the Council’s response or make a different finding of the kind Mr C wants.
The complaint
Mr C complained the Council charged him for care which he says was inadequate. Mr C says carers did not speak English and there were difficulties in communication which led to them not following his care plan properly. Mr C says he should not have to pay his contribution towards his care. Mr C says he was left without care for three weeks when his care provider ended their involvement.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council considered Mr C’s complaints. It said Mr C raised concerns that carers attending could not speak English. The Council says its records show no evidence that Mr C had not received adequate care and his concerns related to communication and non-English speaking carers. It said Mr C asked carers to leave on occasions. The care provider said it tried to stay for the duration of the calls where possible, but due to Mr C’s unreasonable behaviour on some occasions they were not able to. The Council explained the circumstances of Mr C’s unreasonable behaviour.
The Council attempted to resolve the issues between Mr C and his care provider and advised the care provider to evoke its policy for unreasonable behaviour. However, relations broke down and Mr C gave notice. The Council explained although he cancelled his care package he still needed to pay his assessed contribution throughout the notice period.
The Council explained although it will remind the care provider to respect a person’s choice of carer, this cannot always be met due to availability. It also explained the reason Mr C was without care was because he declined care from the Integrated Crisis Response Service when it attempted to provide care on an interim basis after he had terminated his care package and was awaiting the start of a new provider.
Mr C says he should not have to pay for his care. However, we could not make this finding. We were not present when the situations the Council referred to occurred and it is one person’s word against another’s.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr C’s complaint because further investigation by us could not add to this or make a different finding.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman