Gloucestershire County Council (21 006 491)

Category : Adult care services > Assessment and care plan

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 27 Apr 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr X complains about his dealings with the Council over domiciliary care for his late mother. Mr X also alleges racial discrimination by carers, sheltered housing staff and the Council. The Ombudsman discontinued the investigation because we could not add to the previous investigation done by the Council.

The complaint

  1. I refer to the complainant here as Mr X. Mr X complains about his dealings with the Council over domiciliary care for his late mother. Mr X says the care was inadequate and his mother was not properly cared for.
  2. Mr X also alleges racial discrimination by carers, sheltered housing staff and the Council.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with 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, or
  • we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
  • there is another body better placed to consider this complaint,
  • it would be reasonable for the person to ask for an organisation review or appeal.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I examined the complaint and background information provided by Mr X and the Council. I discussed matters with Mr X by telephone. I sent a draft decision statement to Mr X and the Council. I considered the comments of both parties on the draft decision statement.

Back to top

What I found

Background

  1. Mr X’s late mother lived in a sheltered housing flat. She was diagnosed with dementia that affected her ability to care for herself. She received domiciliary care commissioned by the Council. Mr X says the carers provided inadequate care to his mother. Mr X says he faced the inconvenience of having to check on his mother’s care because he could not rely on the carer. He had to leave his job in 2017 to care for his mother given the poor care service.
  2. Mr X complains about the care his mother received. His complaints are about:
    • The Council’s decision that his mother’s needs could not be met at her home and she needed residential care;
    • Safeguarding action taken by the Council because of allegations made by carers and the sheltered housing staff about him and his father;
    • The Council’s decision to report him to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG);
    • The process of moving his mother from her home into residential care was flawed;
    • There were assumptions made about him based on tainted opinions held by the Council’s staff; the carers; and sheltered housing staff.
  3. Mr X alleges racial discrimination based on the various actions taken by the carers, sheltered home staff and the Council.

The Council’s investigation

  1. The Council did not put Mr X’s complaint through its usual complaints procedure. Instead, it commissioned an investigation by an external investigator under its adults complaints procedure.
  2. The investigating officer agreed a statement of complaint with Mr X. The statement of complaint includes the grounds of complaint I have set out above. The officer met with Mr X virtually. The officer interviewed council officers, the carers and the sheltered accommodation staff involved in the complaint. Mr X provided further information to the officer. The officer then investigated six grounds of complaint with various subsections. The outcome of the investigation was that the officer did not uphold five of the grounds of complaint and made no finding on the other.
  3. The Council’s Director of Adult Social Care Operations accepted the findings of the independent investigator. Mr X requested an appeal to a committee of councillors but he did not receive a response from the Director.

Analysis

  1. Having reviewed the full detail of the Council’s investigation, including Mr X’s complaint and the evidence he submitted, I do not consider this is a matter the Ombudsman should now investigate.
  2. Mr X complains that the independent investigator’s report was deficient, the investigator was not truly independent, did not fact check the evidence she received and simply accepted the evidence provided by the Council and she did not give him the opportunity to rebut the Council’s evidence.
  3. I do not agree. The investigator conducted an extensive series of interviews with all relevant council officers as well as the carers and the sheltered housing scheme staff. The officer met with Mr X virtually and considered all the information provided by Mr X before and after the virtual meeting. The investigator’s report set out each of Mr X’s complaints and the relevant evidence, provided by both sides. The investigator gave detailed reasons for her decision not to uphold the grounds of complaints and make no finding on the other.
  4. I recognise Mr X wants the Ombudsman to now consider all the criticisms he made of the officer’s report. However, I do not consider it is proportionate to do so in the circumstances.
  5. Our role is not to provide answers to each and every criticism a complainant may have about a council. Where a complaint has already been the subject of an investigation by an independent investigator under a statutory complaints procedure then we do not re-investigate the complaint. We will examine the complaint process itself to see if it was properly conducted.
  6. The investigator went through all the steps we would expect to see in a complaint investigation and the report contains reasoned justification for the conclusions reached by the investigator. I am satisfied the investigation was rigorous and took account of all relevant evidence and information. I have no reason to believe further investigation by the Ombudsman will result in a substantially different outcome to this complaint, as we would be looking at the same evidence and speaking to the same individuals.
  7. There is a further reason why I do not consider the Ombudsman should pursue this complaint further. The Council referred his mother’s case to the OPG because it had concerns about Mr X’s care for his mother as well as the disagreement it had with him over the move to a residential care home. The OPG looked into Mr X’s management of his mother’s health and welfare and decided not to take any further action. It decided it was not in the best interests of Mr X’s mother to take any further action. It advised the Council to consider mediation with regard to concerns it had about Mr X’s behaviour when visiting his mother.
  8. The OPG was satisfied with Mr X’s management of his mother’s health and welfare. This is a remedy for Mr X as he knows his management of his mother’s care was vindicated by the OPG. Mr X’s mother has since passed away. I do not now consider it proportionate to pursue an investigation into the disagreements Mr X had with the Council over her care as well as the Council’s own concerns about Mr X’s behaviour.
  9. I have considered Mr X’s claim of racial discrimination by staff of the Council, carers and sheltered housing scheme. The claim is based solely on Mr X’s belief that the staff acted in a discriminatory manner. Mr X’s claim does not show any of the staff explicitly making racial comments or acting in a racially discriminatory manner.
  10. Racial discrimination can occur without explicit statements but through implicit actions. But it is not possible for this investigation to now establish such implicit actions. This is because we would be unlikely to find evidence to corroborate one person’s word against another’s.
  11. There is one area of concern. The Council did not respond to Mr X’s request for the matter to be considered by a committee of councillors. The Council had discretion to accept or refuse his request. But as a matter of courtesy and good practice, it should have responded to Mr X’s request rather than simply signpost him to the Ombudsman.
  12. While the Council’s failing here was not good practice, it is not so serious as to lead me to make a formal finding of fault.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. I stopped our investigation and closed this complaint because we cannot add to the Council’s previous independent investigation and further investigation will not lead to a different outcome.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings