Summary: We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint about the Council’s assessment of his care. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault with the actions taken by the Council to warrant an Ombudsman investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr B says if he had not become so upset and distressed the Council would not have undertaken an assessment of his needs and did not tell him he did not need an assessment despite him requesting one. In addition, Mr B says the Council should reimburse him the cost of a sling he had to purchase when his old one became worn.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council apologised that Mr B was upset but assured him it would have undertaken an assessment in any event. It explained the assessment was delayed because Mr B had requested a different assessor and did not advise him he did not need an assessment because following allocation to a new assessor the assessment was completed.
6. The Council says it will not retrospectively pay for his new sling because Mr B did not follow the Occupational Therapists advice. Mr B emailed the Council on 21 December 2020 requesting a replacement sling. The duty Occupational Therapist contacted Mr B the same day and followed this up with an email. It was agreed Mr B’s personal assistant would send photographs of the sling to the Occupational Therapist in order to reduce face to face contact. Mr B contacted the Customer Relations Team by email on 22 December 2020 stating he had found a sling costing £100 and asked if he would be reimbursed the cost. Although the email was forwarded to the Occupational Therapist it was not responded to as they had spoken to Mr B the previous day and were waiting for photographs to check whether there was a replacement sling in stock.
7. The Council says Mr B was aware of the need to send photographs of the sling on the 21 December but did not provide the information required. Instead he made the decision to purchase the replacement sling. The Council explained it would not reimburse the cost of the purchased sling in this instance. We could not say there is enough evidence of fault with the Council’s actions even though Mr B disagrees with them.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault with the actions taken by the Council to warrant an Ombudsman investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman