The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to provide the care and support needs agreed. This is because the Council has already offered a remedy in line with our guidance. Our investigation is unlikely to lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council failed to provide his mother, Mrs Y with the care and support she needed. He says it: Failed to ensure the care provider provided the care agreed, Delayed carrying out her care assessment for nine months, Failed to tell her of the charges for the care she was receiving, and Stopped Mrs Y’s care without warning.
He says this caused his mother distress and worry about her care and meant he had to provide the missing care for his mother.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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: 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, or 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
Mrs Y was discharged from hospital and the Council arranged for a Care Provider to provide daily visits to help with her care and support needs.
Mr X says the Care Provider failed to ensure it attended all visits for the time needed and with the number of carers agreed. He complained the Council failed to carry out a care assessment when Mrs Y was released from hospital until nine months later. He says during the assessment the social worker threatened Mrs Y with paying for the care she had already received or losing her care. He says after this assessment the Council cancelled the care without warning.
The Council accepted Mrs Y had not received the care she was entitled to and there were no records to confirm she had an assessment following her discharge. To resolve the complaint the Council said it would waive all outstanding care charges, pay Mr X £500 in compensation and make service improvements to prevent this from happening again.
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the care and support Mrs Y received. The Council has already offered a remedy which is in line with our guidance on remedies for the acknowledged complaints. Any remaining injustice is insufficient to warrant further investigation, and we are unlikely to achieve a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the Council has provided an appropriate remedy and we are unlikely to achieve a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman