Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints the Council delayed in assessing his mother’s care needs and failed to provide her with suitable care. There is not enough injustice to warrant an investigation. We will not investigate Mr X’s other complaint about the quality of care his mother received. The Council caried out a safeguarding investigation and upheld most of Mr X’s concerns. A further investigation by the Ombudsman would be unlikely to achieve anything further.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council delayed in assessing his mother, Mrs M’s care needs and wrongly decided she could live independently. Mr X says that as a result the Council failed to provide suitable support in the six months before Mrs M’s death in January 2024.
2. Mr X also complains about the poor quality of care Mrs M received and says the Council ignored some of his complaints.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mrs M’s doctor made a referral to the Council in June 2023 stating Mrs M needed an urgent social care assessment. At that time Mrs M received one home care call a day.
8. Between June and September, Mr X contacted the Council many times asking it to carry out the assessment.
9. The Council assessed Mrs M in October 2023. Mr X was in attendance and he said Mrs M needed to be admitted to a care home.
10. The Council determined Mrs M had eligible care needs. However, it did not conclude she met the criteria for residential care.
11. Shortly afterwards, the Council carried out a follow-up assessment because it had concerns that it had not adequately captured Mrs M’s views at the previous one. Mr X was again in attendance. The Council determined Mrs M had capacity to make decisions about her care. The Council recommended an increased home care package. However, Mrs M said she did not want to increase her care package or go into a care home. The Council said it would keep the option open in case she changed her mind. Mr X remained of the view Mrs M needed to go into a care home.
12. Mr X complained to the Council about the delays in carrying out Mrs M’s care assessment and the poor care provided by the care provider. As a result, the Council carried out a safeguarding investigation. This substantiated Mr X’s concerns Mrs M has experienced neglect by the carers.
13. The Council also upheld Mr X’s complaint about the delays in completing the assessment and apologised. It said it had been on the point of issuing a protection plan for Mrs M but she died before it could be completed.

Analysis

14. The law says someone should complain to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the events they are unhappy about. Mr X complained to us in September 2024. This means most of the period of delay from June to September 2023 is late. However, I have decided to exercise discretion and include this in my findings. This is because it was reasonable for Mr X to wait to see if the Council would carry out Mrs M’s assessment and there is evidence he continually chased the Council during this period.
15. Even so, we will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about delays in assessing Mrs M. Because Mrs M ultimately refused to accept the increased care package recommended by the reassessment, she did not experience a significant injustice from the delays. Therefore, the Council’s apology is sufficient to remedy any likely injustice.
16. The Council investigated Mr X’s safeguarding complaints and most of these were substantiated. Further investigation would not achieve anything meaningful.
17. We will not investigate how the Council investigated Mr X’s complaints. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we will not investigate the substantive issue.

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Final decision

18. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the injustice resulting from any faults has been adequately remedied and a further investigation would achieve nothing meaningful.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman