Complaints about councils that arrange and fund residential care placements
This fact sheet is aimed primarily at people who are experiencing problems about their own, or a relative’s, residential care and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.
I am unhappy about the way the council has assessed my care needs and organised residential care for me. Can the Ombudsman help me?
- In some cases yes. The Ombudsman cannot question the merits of decisions, or professional judgements, where they have been reached properly. But we can consider how those decisions are reached and whether they have been implemented properly.
- People are free to arrange their own residential care privately with a care provider who should be registered with the regulator - the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This is called self-funded or self-arranged care.
- The law says that the council must make arrangements for providing residential accommodation for those aged 18 or over who because of age, illness, disability or any other circumstances, are in need of care and attention not otherwise available to them.
- The council must protect people’s property where no-one can be found to undertake this task. The council should place a person at his/her preferred choice of accommodation providing, among other things, that the accommodation is suitable and the cost does not require a council to pay more than it would expect to pay.
- A council must place a person in preferred accommodation if a third party is prepared to pay the difference, often referred to as a ‘top-up’.
- A person can express a preference for 24-hour care at home but a council is not obliged to provide this if it considers residential care would be more appropriate to meet the assessed needs.
- Councils must charge for residential care that they provide or arrange. When a resident stays no more than eight weeks in accommodation - whether for respite or for a trial placement - a council has the discretion to limit what it charges.
- A council must make a financial assessment and inform the person how much he/she will be charged. This may be the whole sum if the person has a high income or substantial assets. Otherwise the contribution required takes into account a person's income and savings, and the value of their home (unless it is occupied by the person's partner, by a relative or member of the family who is 60 or over, or by a person who is incapacitated).
- A person must not do anything to deliberately deprive themselves of capital. If they do they are assessed as having notional capital.
How do I complain?
- You should normally complain to the council first. We will not normally consider a social services complaint until the council has had the opportunity to consider and resolve it locally.
- You should normally complain to us within 12 months of hearing what the council’s final decision is. When you make a complaint to social services you should be given information about what will happen to your complaint and how long this will take.
- The council should agree with you a plan for how it will deal with your complaint, including a timescale. You can complain to us is if you’re not happy with the outcome once the council has completed its consideration of your complaint.
- In exceptional cases we will consider complaints even though they haven’t completed the council’s social services complaints procedures, perhaps because of serious unexplained delays.
- To complain to the Ombudsman phone our Advice Team on 0300 061 0614 (8.30am to 5.00pm, Mondays to Fridays). You will be able to discuss your complaint with one of our advisers. You can text us on 0762 480 4299.
- You can complete an online complaint form.
If you consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for?
We consider whether there has been fault in the way the council has dealt with a person’s assessment for and admission to residential care. If there is we will then consider what impact this has had on the person, and sometimes on the person’s family. Some faults we might find are that the council:
- delayed unreasonably in carrying out an assessment on whether residential care is needed
- delayed unreasonably in arranging the provision of residential care
- arranged residential care that did not meet the person's assessed needs
- failed to give the person full information about choices of accommodation
- failed to inform the person of the financial charges prior to entering residential care, or
- wrongly assessed the person’s financial contribution.
What happens if the Ombudsman finds the council was at fault?
- If there are errors in the assessments, we may ask the council to reassess the person and ensure the correct services are now put in place.
- For errors in financial assessments we may ask the council to reimburse a person who has been overcharged.
- If substantial harm or distress has been caused we may recommend compensation for those affected.
- We may also ask the council to amend procedures fr the benefit of other service users.
Examples of some complaints we have considered
Ms L was the executor of her father’s estate. She complained that the council had wrongly included the value of her father’s property in its financial assessment even though her sister, who suffered from mental health difficulties, had always lived at the property. The council placed a legal charge on Ms L’s father’s home and Ms L had to pay this charge on sale of the property after her father died. We found that the council had failed to consider properly whether the father’s property should be disregarded on the grounds that the sister, an incapacitated person, still lived there. The council agreed to reimburse the father’s estate.
Mrs B's family lived several miles away from her and were worried by her frequent anxious phone calls, especially at night time. They felt she could no longer cope at home and should be considered for residential care. The council conducted a care needs assessment, decided her care needs were substantial, but that she did not need publicly funded residential care. They offered a package of domiciliary care in her own home, and started the service promptly on a trial basis. The family thought this was insufficient. We found that the council had legitimately adopted a policy of only offering residential care where personal needs were assessed as critical. After investigation, we were satisfied that a sound care needs assessment had been completed that took the family's views into account. The council was entitled to reach the conclusion it did that residential care was not essential to meet Mrs B's needs and that she could be appropriately supported to stay in her own home.
Other sources of information
Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please phone 0300 061 0614.
The Local Government Ombudsmen provide a free, independent and impartial service. We consider complaints about the administrative actions of councils and some other authorities. We cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. If we find something has gone wrong, such as poor service, service failure, delay or bad advice and that a person has suffered as a result the Ombudsmen aim to get it put right by recommending a suitable remedy.
Date Updated: 17/08/11