Summary: There was no fault by the Council, in the way it commissioned a respite care placement for the complainant, or in the conduct of the care provider’s staff during the placement. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Miss C.
2. Miss C complains:

• the Council arranged a respite care placement for her, which was not suitable for her needs;
• the care provider did not give her medication she needed;
• a member of the care provider’s staff made an inappropriate comment to another service user; and
• the Council has not updated her care plan.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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 s34H(1), as amended)
4. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
5. 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)

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What I have and have not investigated

6. I have investigated the first three points of Miss C’s complaint, as I have set out in paragraph 2.
7. I have not investigated the final point of Miss C’s complaint, about the Council not updating her care plan. This is because Miss C did not make this point when she complained to the Council. The law says a person must do this before they complain to us, and so I cannot include this point in my investigation.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Miss C and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

10. Miss C has physical and learning disabilities, and, in September 2024, was living with her family. She was shortly due to go on holiday with them, but a few days before the holiday started, Miss C decided she did not want to go. As she cannot safely live on her own, this meant the Council had to find a respite care placement for her.
11. The Council asked lots of care providers in the area if they had a place for Miss C, but only one said it could take her. The Council agreed to commission this placement for the time Miss C’s family would be away.
12. Miss C went to the placement, but within a few days both she and the care provider contacted the Council to say she was not happy there. Miss C then asked the Council to find her a new respite placement, but the Council said it could not do that quickly. Miss C said the care provider had told her the Council had not given it enough information about her, and that it would not have accepted her if it had properly understood her needs.
13. The Council then contacted the care provider. The care provider said Miss C was being aggressive towards carers, and that they could not give her the attention she wanted. The care provider said it was going to end Miss C’s placement because it could not manage her behaviour. The Council agreed to begin looking for another placement, but it could not find one before Miss C’s family returned from holiday and she went home.
14. On an unrecorded date some time later, Miss C made a formal complaint to the Council. She said the respite care placement had not been suitable for her needs, and that her social worker had been on leave while was at the placement, meaning Miss C could not contact her.
15. Miss C complained that, during the placement, the care provider had not given her the medication she needed. She also said she had heard a member of staff making an inappropriate comment to another service user.
16. Miss C said she had had to call the Council’s crisis team while she was at the placement because of her anxiety. She said this was not the first time she had been put in an inappropriate care placement, and said her social worker had not listened to her.
17. The Council responded to Miss C’s complaint in September 2025. It said a different care provider, where Miss C had stayed for a previous respite placement, had said it could not meet her needs because of her behaviour.
18. For the September 2024 placement, the Council explained the care provider was the only one that was available at short notice. Unfortunately this placement had also broken down because Miss C was not happy, and because the care provider felt it could not manage her behaviour. The Council said that, before the placement started, Miss C’s social worker had pointed out to her that she had also not been happy when she went to respite in the past.
19. The Council said the social worker had told the care provider about her medication before the placement had started, although she had not kept detailed notes about this conversation. However, the social worker said she had spoken to Miss C about a month after the placement ended, and Miss C had said she had refused to let staff give her the medication, or to take it herself. The social worker said she had written to Miss C’s GP about this, because she felt Miss C needed more support for her health conditions.
20. Finally, the Council said the social worker had spoken to the care provider about the inappropriate comment Miss C had reported. The care provider had explained this had been a joke between a staff member and the other service user, and that the service user had laughed and not been offended by it.
21. In October 2025 Miss C referred her complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Analysis

22. I will address each of the three points of Miss C’s complaint that I have investigated in turn.
23. First though, I need to explain the law says a person should complain to the Ombudsman within a year of becoming aware of the issue they are unhappy about. Miss C’s complaint is about a respite placement in September 2024, but she did not complain to us until October 2025, more than a year later, so her complaint is late.
24. Normally that means we would not investigate it. However, I have decided to make an exception in this case, because I understand Miss C’s learning disability can make things like this difficult for her.

The suitability of the respite placement

25. Miss C says the care provider was not suitable for her and could not meet her needs. She says the Council was wrong to put her in this placement for this reason.
26. I do not consider the Council was at fault. As the Council has explained, Miss C made a very late decision not to go on holiday, and it had only a short time to look for a placement for her. Only one care provider offered to take Miss C, and so the Council had no choice except to agree this placement.
27. I am aware that, after a few days, the care provider told the Council it had not properly understood about Miss C’s behaviour when it agreed to take her. Miss C says the care provider told her it would not have taken her, if it had known this.
28. But I have seen the ‘pen picture’ the Council sent to care providers when it was looking for a placement. It makes very clear how challenging Miss C’s behaviour could be. So I do not agree the Council did not tell the care provider what to expect from her. Instead, I think the care provider just underestimated how difficult it would be. This is unfortunate, but it is not the Council’s fault.
29. I find no fault in this part of Miss C’s complaint.

Medication

30. Miss C says the care provider did not give her the medication she needed, which made her ill.
31. The Council’s notes show the social worker discussed Miss C’s medication with her GP before the respite placement started. But the notes do not say exactly what the social worker told the care provider about this. It would be better if the Council’s notes were clearer.
32. However, the Council says that, a little while after the placement ended, Miss C told the social worker she had refused to let the care provider’s staff give her the medication, and also that she would not take it herself. And the Council’s notes show that, just before the placement started, the social worker talked to Miss C’s family member, who also said she would not take the medicine herself, or let anybody else give it to her.
33. On balance, because of this, I am satisfied the Council is right to say Miss C refused to let the care provider give her the medicine, or take it herself, and this is why she did not have it during the placement. I do not agree it was the Council’s fault that Miss C did not take her medicine.
34. I find no fault in this part of Miss C’s complaint.

Inappropriate comment

35. Miss C says a member of the care provider’s staff made an inappropriate comment to another service user while she was there. But the Council says it is satisfied this was just a joke, and that the service user was not upset by it.
36. I cannot say whether that is true. But, even if it is not true, the staff member was not talking to Miss C when they made the comment, and so she was not the person who was affected by it. If the other service user was upset about the comment, it would be up to them to decide whether to make a complaint about it, not Miss C. For this reason I will not investigate it anymore.
37. I have discontinued my investigation of this part of Miss C’s complaint.

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Decision

38. I find fault no fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman