The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the care his late father Mr Y received at a care home and the Council’s decision to cremate Mr Y. Investigation would not add to previous safeguarding and complaint investigations, lead to a different outcome, nor achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mr X. There is not enough evidence of Council fault regarding Mr Y’s cremation to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X is the son of the late Mr Y. Mr Y was in a care home in the Council’s area when he died in 2021, a Council-commissioned placement. Mr X complains: the home provided inadequate care to Mr Y up to the date of his death; the Council disregarded Mr Y’s final wishes to be buried overseas and instead organised his cremation in the UK.
Mr X says unanswered questions about Mr Y’s care and funeral arrangements have profoundly affected him. He says the lack of closure on Mr Y’s care and passing has led to severe psychological trauma and PTSD and his detention under the Mental Health Act, in turn resulting in substantial loss of earnings and disruption to his personal and professional life.
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: we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome; or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation; or there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mr Y and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We recognise the great upset and distress Mr X has been caused and that he continues to feel as a result of the death of Mr Y and its circumstances. The issue at the core of Mr X’s complaint, and the question to which he considers he has not received satisfactory answers, is whether the actions of the commissioned care provider caused or contributed to Mr Y’s death. Ombudsman investigations cannot make such a finding. Only the coroner can make a finding on someone’s cause of death. An investigation by us now could not find the outcome for Mr Y would have been different but for any different actions by the care home. We cannot remedy any injustice caused to Mr Y while in the care home because we cannot do this for someone once they have died.
The care home’s complaint response shows it investigated to determine the events before Mr Ys’ death and his wider care provision. The complaint response shows Mr Y’s care was the subject of a safeguarding investigation due to the circumstances surrounding his death. That safeguarding process considered the available evidence but could not fully explain the cause of a head injury Mr Y had received before he died. But there would be no new or different information available to an investigation by us which staff and officers have not already considered when responding to Mr X and following the safeguarding process. An investigation by us cannot alter or add to those investigations to provide more or different answers for Mr X. Concerns about the circumstances of Mr Y’s death held by anyone would have been matters to raise with the coroner at the time.
Mr X also complains the Council disregarded Mr Y’s wishes to be buried in his home country. This is not an issue Mr X has put before the Council as a formal complaint. We do not normally investigate a complaint which the body in jurisdiction has not first had opportunity to consider within its own complaint process. However, the emails Mr X has provided show the Council corresponded with Mr Y’s family for several months after his death. Officers frequently sought an arrangement with the family for them to register the death and manage the funeral they considered Mr Y wanted. Officers explained the Council had a legal duty to register the death and make those arrangements by a certain date under Section 46 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Mr X’s family did not make different funeral arrangements so the Council stepped in to comply with their duty under the law, several months after Mr Y’s death. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council on this issue to warrant us investigating.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: investigation would not add to the previous safeguarding and complaint investigations, lead to a different outcome or achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mr X; and there is not enough evidence of Council fault relating to the funeral process to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman