Summary: The Council caused delay in completing Mr C’s adult social care assessment. The Council failed to always respond promptly to Mr C’s contact and failed to return requested telephone calls. The Council will apologise for its errors which caused Mr C some frustration, time and trouble. The Council’s actions in the assessment and support planning did not delay Mr C receiving care support, because the process has now stalled due to financial assessment concerns.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr C, says the Council has taken too long to complete his care needs assessment. Mr C says the assessment contains many factual errors, and the Council is not engaging with him to complete an accurate assessment document from which to assess his eligible care needs. Mr C says he is struggling to manage without support, is isolated and alone. Mr C struggled to get an advocate to help him, and his mother died of a terminal illness during this period. Mr C says he was regularly contacting the Council to try and correct the document, but it would not respond to him. The Council’s actions added to his distress at a difficult time. Mr C wanted to arrange a telephone conversation to go through the errors and agree the care needs assessment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered:
• Information provided by Mr C, including in a telephone conversation.
• Information provided by the Council in response to my enquiries.
• The Care Act 2014 and associated statutory guidance.
5. Mr C and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

6. A previous Ombudsman investigation found fault in how the Council carried out a care needs assessment for Mr C; the Council agreed to start a care needs assessment as soon as possible (and within one month) and complete it over a suitable period to consider Mr C’s fluctuating needs.
7. The Council started its assessment by meeting with Mr C about a month after the Ombudsman’s decision, so was just within the agreed timescale. The Council explains it could not start sooner because a member of staff which it felt would be good to be part of the process was on leave. The next dates were then booked around five weeks later. The Council explains this was because of the availability of everyone involved (two social workers, Mr C and Mr C’s advocate). The Council accepted this timescale added to Mr C’s frustration and managed to arrange earlier dates. Mr C says this was totally unnecessary delay because after the first meeting the member of staff who was initially on leave took no further part, so he does not see the need to have waited for her when the one social worker could have dealt with the case.
8. The Council accepted it could have sought Mr C’s consent to contact his GP before it met with him, so could have been acting on that sooner, but says overall that did not impact on the timescale in this case.
9. The Council then met with Mr C several times to ensure it had a full picture of his needs. It took five months from August to January for the Council to complete its assessment. The meetings were held regularly. Mr C’s advocate recorded he said he could not get through an assessment in one sitting, Mr C disputes this. The Council explains it ensured Mr C could get all his points across by holding several meetings.
10. The Council sent Mr C the assessment at the end of January, and then hand delivered a copy at the end of February. The Council says it did not get a reply from Mr C and contacted him at the start of July. Mr C disputes this; he says he contacted the Council before July and asked for a telephone call, but it did not respond until July. Mr C wished to discuss the assessment; this happened in August.
11. Mr C agreed the assessment in September after further phone calls with his social worker. Mr C is entitled to a package of support of seven hours per week. The Council has completed a financial assessment; it told Mr C what he would need to pay towards the care and offered to start the care package. Mr C is disputing the finances and asked for the care package not to start until the finance situation was resolved.

Was there fault causing injustice?

12. I find the Council could have started the assessment process quicker by gaining Mr C’s consent to contact his GP before the first meeting, but this did not delay the overall process.
13. It took contact from Mr C and the Ombudsman to achieve meetings in September 2019 rather than October, otherwise the process would have taken a month longer than it did. I understand it is tricky to arrange convenient times when several people are involved, but the Council did manage to make appointments in September so it was clearly possible and should have been those dates at the outset without needing challenge to achieve it. The Council was aware of the background to this case; that Mr C was without a care package when he felt he needed one, and that a proper assessment was required as soon as possible.
14. Although the assessment process took five months to gather the information, I do not find fault in this case. There is no set timescale to complete a care needs assessment, because it must be tailored to the needs of the individual being assessed. In this case the Council met regularly with Mr C and his advocate to fully assess his needs, it arranged assessment by the enablement team and Occupational Therapist team and considered third party information to complete the assessment.
15. It was what happened next where the delays really started. Once the assessment was complete it took a long time to agree it, and until this was done the Council could not move on to the support planning stage. There was delay by the Council between February and July, it could have contacted Mr C much sooner to progress this case. There were some instances where the Council could have responded to Mr C’s communications more quickly, and this made Mr C frustrated. Mr C had to chase the Council or get the Ombudsman involved.
16. Mr C finds it easier to communicate over the telephone rather than in writing, and repeatedly asked for telephone calls which the Council failed to provide. The Council has a legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make changes to their approach or provision to ensure disabled people can access their service as well as everybody else. It is not always obvious when someone is asking for a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act, the Council should always be mindful to it.
17. There was also some delay because Mr C thought his care needs assessment could not be completed until the Council corrected errors in an Occupational Therapy report. Again, this could have been discussed and resolved sooner.
18. Much of Mr C’s concerns about the assessment were about spelling or grammar errors, rather than the content of the assessment. The Council could have clarified this with Mr C and explained that if he agreed to the content, they could move to the support planning to get support in place while also fine tuning the assessment document. The Council says it did this in a telephone conversation with Mr C, but has provided no evidence to support that it did. Mr C says if the Council had explained this he would have agreed to move to the next stage of support planning, why would he not when his goal is to get care support that he feels he desperately needs. I find it more likely than not had the Council properly explained this then Mr C would have agreed.
19. Mr C’s concerns about the client contribution he must pay towards his care services is a new issue, and not covered in this complaint investigation. Mr C is making a separate complaint to the Council about how it has assessed his financial contribution.
20. Overall, I find there has been some delays by the Council that have lengthened this process. The delays by the Council do not affect the outcome, the reason a support package is not yet in place is now because of the financial issues.
21. Mr C believes he was eligible for a support package from 2017, and he should be compensated for not having any support between 2017 and 2020. A previous Ombudsman investigation covered that period and acknowledged there was uncertainty about whether Mr C would have received a support package. This investigation is about any fault and impact since August 2019.

Agreed action

22. To acknowledge the fault identified in this statement, and the impact caused to Mr C, the Council will apologise to Mr C for:
• Originally arranging the first appointments in October rather than September; and
• its delay between February and July; and
• for not always responding to his contact promptly or returning requested telephone calls; and
• for failing to clearly explain any spelling/grammar errors in the assessment document could be fine tuned at a later date, but if Mr C agreed the content about his needs they could move to the support planning so as not to hold up getting him the support in place.
23. The Council should complete the agreed action within one month of the Ombudsman’s final decision and provide evidence of its compliance to the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

24. I have completed my investigation on the basis the agreed action is sufficient to acknowledge Mr C’s frustration, time and trouble since August 2019.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman