Summary: Mr B complained about the communications the Council had with him, around the time his wife (Mrs B) moved from their home into residential care. We did not uphold the complaint, finding no fault in the Council’s actions causing injustice to Mr B.

The complaint

1. Mr B’s complaint centred on communications the Council had with him around June and July 2024. Around this time the Council helped arrange for his wife, Mrs B to move from the home they shared into residential care. Mr B complained to the Council in August 2024 that:

• when the move took place in June 2024, Mrs B’s daughter (Ms C) attended his home, contrary to his wishes;
• that it did not tell him where his wife would go to; he did not know her whereabouts for over 24 hours;
• that when he discussed these matters with the Council, a manager spoke to him inappropriately. Mr B said they told him he “had no rights”;
• he had concerns about Mrs B’s family taking her out of residential care late in the evening.

2. Since this time Mr B has raised more concerns with this office, including:

• that the Council never explained to him properly the financial arrangements around care Mrs B received at home before she entered residential care. He received bills he did not understand;
• that when Mrs B entered residential care, the Council removed personal possessions as well as clothes and toiletries from his home;
• that it contacted him in July 2024 when in hospital for a major operation; contrary to its earlier agreement not to contact him then;
• that Ms C has become Mrs B’s appointee and now looks after her pension and welfare benefit income.

3. Mr B said the actions of the Council caused him distress, worsening his mental health. He said he did not take part in key decisions around his wife’s care and the Council involved itself in a family dispute by siding with Ms C and others. He thinks the Council gave personal information to Ms C that it should not have.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
7. We will not continue 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 (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)).

8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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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What I have and have not investigated

9. I investigated the matters set out in paragraph 1 of this decision statement. I did not investigate all the matters set out in paragraph 2. I investigated the matters set out in the second and third bullet points as those concerned the Council’s communications with Mr B around his wife’s care, closely linked to his original complaint. I considered the information needed to decide those parts of the complaint, would therefore be substantially the same as that needed to come to a view on the matters covered in paragraph 1.
10. However, I decided against investigating matters linked to Mrs B’s finances and cost of her care– set out in the first and fourth bullet points of paragraph 2. I considered these distinct issues and we could only investigate a complaint, if the Council had opportunity to investigate them first (see also paragraph 6). It had not had such an opportunity.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
12. I gave Mr B and the Council a chance to comment on a draft version of this decision statement and / or provide any further evidence they considered relevant to its content. I took account of any responses they made before deciding to issue this final decision.

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What I found

Relevant legal and administrative considerations

13. Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014 require councils to carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. The assessment considers the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing. Government guidance says councils must meet needs urgently if needed. This can include securing residential care.
14. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is the framework for acting and deciding for people who lack the mental capacity to make particular decisions for themselves. The Act and a Code of Practice (2007) describe the steps a person should take when dealing with someone who may lack capacity to make decisions for themselves.
15. An assessment of someone’s capacity is specific to the decision made at a particular time.
16. A key principle of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is that any act done for, or any decision made for a person who lacks capacity must be in that person’s best interests.
17. Sometimes there is conflict about what is in a person’s best interests. In these cases, councils should try and resolve the dispute. If they cannot do so then the Court of Protection can decide what is in the person’s best interests.
18. A council must make enquiries if it thinks a person may be at risk of abuse or neglect and has care and support needs which mean the person cannot protect themselves. After making enquiries, a council must decide whether it or another person or agency should take any action to protect the person from abuse. (section 42, Care Act 2014)

The key facts

19. Mrs B became known to the Council around January 2024. She lived at home with Mr B and had care needs. Over the next few months, the Council set up a care package while Mrs B lived at home, which included her visiting a day centre for respite and going out with a support worker.
20. By around May 2024 the Council’s case notes began to record regular contacts from Mr B and others, which explained that Mrs B’s needs put a lot of strain on Mr B. They contained regular references to Mr B saying he struggled to cope in meeting his wife’s needs. In addition, the Council knew relations between Mr B and Mrs B’s family, were sometimes difficult. Mr B also told the Council he had to enter hospital for an operation that would leave him laid up for some time, scheduled for mid-June (later rescheduled for early July).
21. By early June 2024 the Council had assessed Mrs B’s mental capacity and decided she did not have capacity to make decisions about her care or where she should live. Mrs B’s social worker recorded speaking to Mr B and telling him she had already spoken to professionals about Mrs B’s needs and that she would speak to Ms C also (Mrs B’s daughter). The social worker said Mr B understood this. She recorded Mr B agreeing Mrs B needed a short-term placement at a residential care home.
22. Next the social worker recorded asking Mr B if he would pack up some belongings including medication, toiletries and clothing for Mrs B and if he could take her to the residential care home. Mr B suggested his wife’s family should do this, and the social worker said she would call Ms C therefore.
23. In the event, Mrs B did not enter residential care immediately. She first went to stay with Ms C for a weekend. Mr B told me he did not know of this arrangement at the time. However, the Council kept a case note which recorded him being relieved at having some respite and understood Mrs B was with her family. A later case note referred to Mr B talking about packing up items for Mrs B’s stay with her daughter.
24. Mrs B returned to her home for around another two weeks. But during this time the day centre said it could no longer provide respite for Mrs B because of her increasing needs. And the Council received several more contacts from Mr B and others, expressing concern at the stress Mr B was under caring for Mrs B. Case notes show Council social workers and other professionals worried for both Mr and Mrs B’s wellbeing.
25. The Council’s social worker made an entry on the case notes in late June saying: “I therefore advised [Mr B] that it is now time that we seriously consider a residential home as it will not be sustainable at home any longer. I asked [Mr B] if he would like to have a look around care homes to see what he thinks would be best for [Mrs B]. [Mr B] said that he would find this too difficult so I advised I would call [Ms C] to ask if she could support with this instead”.
26. The next day the social worker recorded speaking to Mr B again about Mrs B entering residential care temporarily. The social worker said they would visit in the morning and again assess Mrs B’s capacity around care and accommodation. They recorded saying that if they found Mrs B lacked capacity, a “best interest decision will be made”. In a second conversation later that day the Council reported Mr B expressing some dissatisfaction with Mrs B’s family, but it made no note of any specific tension with Ms C.
27. The social worker spoke to Ms C the same day and discussed the possibility of Mrs B moving the residential care the following day. The social worker said they would visit Mrs B in the morning and recorded Ms C saying she would try and visit also. Later that day Ms C and the social worker spoke again about a vacancy at a specific residential care home.
28. The following morning the Council recorded receiving a call from Mr B who said he would meet with the social worker, but did not want Ms C present. Around the same time the social worker spoke to Ms C about arranging Mrs B’s move later that same day.
29. The social worker then went to Mr and Mrs B’s house, where they reported seeing a confrontation between Mr B and Ms C. Mr B was unhappy at Ms C’s presence, and referred to his earlier conversation with the Council. The social worker said she told Mr B that she had not invited Ms C to the home, but knew she planned on attending.
30. Ms C left the property with Mrs B. Mr B then allowed the social worker and colleague into the property where they gathered Mrs B’s possessions. They recorded that Mr B understood the arrangement that Mrs B would move to residential care. Mrs B spent the day at Ms C’s home before moving to the residential care home. The social worker recorded completing mental capacity assessments during the day and taking Mrs B’s possessions to the home.
31. The next day Mr B got back in contact with the Council. He was unhappy with some items taken by the social worker to Mrs B. He also did not know where Mrs B had moved to. He spoke to the social worker’s line manager who gave him that information.
32. During the following week Mrs B’s family arranged for her to move to an alternative residential care home. When the social worker became aware of this, she recorded not telephoning Mr B as it was the day of his operation. However, her notes say she sent him a text message. The next contact the Council recorded with Mr B was when he telephoned its offices, three days later following his hospital discharge. He confirmed he knew that Mrs B had moved to another care home. He said he thought decisions around Mrs B’s accommodation, happened “behind his back”.
33. Mr B spoke once more the social worker’s line manager at the start of August 2024. In this call he expressed some dissatisfaction around Mrs B’s move to a different residential care home. The manager said they “reminded” Mr B of the circumstances before Mrs B moved and that it was an emergency placement. They recorded the decision to move Mrs B as being in her best interests. They recorded Mr B saying he was consulting a solicitor because he thought he had “no rights” as Mrs B’s husband. He was also unhappy at the circumstances surrounding a visit from Mrs B’s family, when they brought Mrs B to his house.
34. The next day Mr B made his complaint, as summarised in paragraph 1. The Council replied to the complaint at the end of the month. Its response did not answer the suggestion it allowed Ms C to visit the family home on the day Mrs B entered residential care. But it referred to the difficult relationship Mr B had with Mrs B’s family. It said it had consulted Mr B around key decisions. It apologised to him if he felt it had spoken to him poorly or aggressively. It promised to investigate concerns Mr B had around the circumstances of the visit he received from Mrs B with her family.

My findings

The complaint that Ms C attended Mr B’s home, contrary to his wishes, the day Mrs B moved to residential care

35. Many of my findings relied on the notes the Council kept of its involvement in Mrs B’s case. As well as providing a contemporary record, I found the notes unusually thorough and detailed. I shared with Mr B all the notes of the Council’s contacts with him.
36. I considered it relevant that before the day of Mrs B’s move, the notes showed the Council:

• knew from Mr B and those supporting Mr and Mrs B, that he was under considerable strain meeting Mrs B’s needs. There were regular references to Mr B expressing the view he struggled to meet his wife’s needs and could not continue to meet those;
• knew in addition, he also faced impending admission to hospital to have significant surgery;
• had therefore discussed with Mr B the possibility of Mrs B moving to residential care as an emergency. It recorded him having no objection to this;
• had also invited Mr B to consider options for where Mrs B might move to and to help with the move. It recorded him declining this;
• had told Mr B it would therefore involve Ms C in these decisions and did not record him objecting to this.

37. It was against this backdrop the Council spoke to Ms C often in the run up to the day of the move. As Ms C worked with the Council in arranging for Mrs B’s move, this was both inevitable and desirable.
38. The social work notes did not show the Council invited Ms C to Mr and Mrs B’s home on the morning of Mrs B’s move. But it saw no reason not to tell Ms C of the social worker’s visit, given Ms C’s involvement in the arrangements as described. It further had no reason to object when Ms C indicated she may also visit the home the same morning. It knew Ms C had a close involvement in her mother’s life. And while it knew of some tension between Mr B and Mrs B’s family, it did not know that relations had become so strained Mr B did not want Ms C in the home. Mr B only communicated that information on the morning the social worker visited.
39. Mr B’s report to the Council and the timing of the visit were so close together, I thought it unlikely the Council could have prevented Ms C arriving when she did. And in any event, as noted above, the Council had never invited her to the visit –it simply raised no objection to her attendance. It was therefore a matter for Mr B to let Ms C know that he did not want her in the home.
40. Clearly a confrontation arose between Mr B and Ms C and this caused him distress. But it did not arise because of the Council’s involvement in Mr and Mrs B’s family life. Because as I have explained, it was not responsible for Ms C attending Mr and Mrs B’s home when she did. That was solely her decision and it was for Mr B to prevent that, if he did not want her to visit. His distress did not arise therefore because of any fault by the Council.

The complaint the Council did not tell Mr B where Mrs C had moved to

41. I found no record that on the day of Mrs B’s move Mr B knew where she had gone to.
42. I considered this unfortunate but found no evidence of any deliberate concealment by the Council. As I noted above there are multiple records kept by the Council of it discussing in general terms with Mr B about Mrs B moving to residential care on a short-term basis. Also, that it invited his involvement in those arrangements, but he declined due to his health at the time.
43. Then on the day of the move there was the unfortunate breakdown in relations between Mr B and Ms C. The social worker left a detailed note and in that recorded Mr B’s unhappiness with Ms C’s attendance and questioning what involvement the social worker had in that. At no point did they record Mr B asking about Mrs B’s whereabouts once she left with Ms C. There is no reason to suppose the Council would not have told him, as it did the next day when he asked.
44. I accepted there was an argument the Council should have told Mr B where Mrs B would move to, given his obvious interest in the matter, without him having to ask. But I did not hold the Council at fault for not telling him, given the exceptional circumstances of the day. I thought it reasonable to assume both Mr B and the social worker became distracted by the disagreement between Mr B and Ms C.
45. And, even if I had found the Council at fault here, I could not say this caused Mr B any significant injustice. This was because he found out about Mrs B’s whereabouts the next day as soon as he asked. So, I could not justify further investigation into this matter.

The complaint a manager spoke to Mr B inappropriately

46. The Council recorded two conversations between Mr B and the social worker’s line manager. In neither did it record telling Mr B that he had “no rights” over Mrs B. However, these words appear in the second conversation record, attributed to Mr B.
47. I could not find the Council at fault here. First, because the record it kept did not align with Mr B’s account. In such circumstances I could not prefer one party’s record of the call over the other. So, I did not have the evidence to uphold the complaint.
48. Second, I noted even if the manager used these words, or Mr B interpreted her words that way, they were not necessarily inappropriate. It would all depend on the context of what Mr B asked or wanted to know.
49. I considered this part of the complaint highlighted a broader difficulty Mr B had in understanding the role of the Council in supporting his wife’s move to residential care. I set out above what the Council must do when meeting someone’s care needs who does not have capacity to decide their own care arrangements (see paragraphs 13 to 16). I found the Council had done what I would expect. Its records showed it assessed Mrs B’s capacity to decide her own care arrangements. It also consulted Mr B and others involved in Mrs B’s care to find out where they thought her needs should be met. It recorded a consensus Mrs B needed residential care and this was in Mrs B’s “best interests”.
50. With hindsight, the Council could have put something in writing to Mr B to explain its role in more detail. But there was a need for urgency, after Mrs B lost her day centre place and with Mr B facing surgery and his own statements on how he struggled to meet her needs. So, I could not fault it for this.
51. Mr B also suggested to me he would have benefited from someone to help him navigate the care system, such as an advocate. The Council must provide advocacy in some circumstances but I did not consider it needed to do so here. While Mr B clearly struggled at times to meet Mrs B’s needs, there was nothing I read which suggested he struggled with what social workers were telling him. Or that he wanted to challenge their judgements.
52. Where I found matters got more complicated was when I considered Mrs B’s move from the first to the second care home, which coincided with Mr B’s admission to hospital. The Council did not go through a best interest decision making process here. It did ensure Mr B knew of the move. But he only learnt about it after the event.
53. I could understand Mr B’s distress at being shut out of this decision. I had some concern the Council did not give him more consideration when it learnt Mrs B’s family wanted her to change care homes. But I noted that when Mrs B first moved, it was as an emergency, and a temporary move. While it is not clear from the paperwork if Mrs B had to move from the first care home, this was presumably a realistic prospect. Second, it was Mrs B’s family, not the Council that initiated the move. If they discussed the move without telling Mr B, the Council could not prevent that. Third, it coincided with Mr B’s hospital admission when on his own account, and for good reason, he did not want contact from the Council.
54. Taking the above into account did not to find fault. I also considered that even if I had come to a different view on that, I could not say the fault caused Mr B an injustice. Because I had no reason to find the move was not in Mrs B’s best interest as the family sought a more suitable placement for her. There was no suggestion made by Mr B or anywhere in the case papers the placement did not suit Mrs B or not meet her needs.

The complaint Mr B made about Mrs B’s family taking her out of residential care late in the evening

55. I found no reason to fault the Council’s approach to this part of the complaint. It clearly had no part in Mrs B’s family deciding to take her to visit Mr B, nor the timing of this.
56. All the Council could do was consider after the event, if it should intervene. I found the Council had no good reason to attempt such an intervention. It could only have done so, if it believed by not doing so that Mrs B might come to significant harm (see paragraph 18).
57. I could not question the Council’s view that threshold was not met here. It had no reason to suggest to the care home it should try and limit Mrs B’s engagement with her family. And it was for Mr B and the family to agree if Mr B did not want them to visit him on such excursions.

The complaint about the removal of personal possessions

58. The notes recorded Mr B raising a concern about this the day after Mrs B moved to residential care. He suggested there were personal items belonging to him (or which he should keep for safekeeping) in a jewellery box. I considered it unfortunate the Council removed these items. But I could not say the Council was at fault, given it would be safe to assume Mrs B would want some jewellery in the care home.
59. Also, Mr B was there when social workers took Mrs B’s possessions and he had the chance to stop them. If neither he nor they, did not go through the contents of the box during its removal, then I think this probably happened because of the exceptional circumstances on the day. For which the Council was not to blame.
60. With the Council having told Mr B where Mrs B was, I considered he could recover those items. Or, if he could not do this, he could have asked the Council to recover the items he wanted. But I noted he dropped this matter in later contacts with the Council and did not raise it in his original complaint, suggesting he had resolved it. I could see no reason to investigate this part of the complaint further.

The complaint about contact while in hospital

61. I noted above the Council had one record of contact with Mr B while in hospital and that was by text message. I could not say that was wrong as it contacted him to tell him of Mrs B’s change of address.

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Final Decision

62. For the reasons set out above I did not find the Council at fault, or else any fault did not have cause Mr B an injustice. I therefore completed my investigation satisfied with its actions.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman