Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council failing to provide care and support in line with his mother’s needs and removing some of her care records. This is because part of it is late, we could not add to the previous investigation and it is unlikely we would find fault.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to provide his mother with care and support in line with her needs. He also said the Council’s commissioned Care Provider removed some of Mrs Y’s care records. Mr X said his mother was left isolated and without appropriate support. It caused him distress. He wants the Council to acknowledge it acted with fault.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, 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))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council commissioned care and support for Mrs Y in her home. As part of her care package, Mrs Y had a three-hour weekly assisted visit call as well as daily care calls for her personal care needs. The assisted visit call meant a care worker would assist Mrs Y to attend social activities outside of her home. Mr X told the Council the weekly visit was not aligned to when Mrs Y wanted to see her friends. He said Mrs Y’s Social Worker refused to amend the time slot of the visit. However by July 2024, the Council had amended Mrs Y’s time slot.
7. Mr X said between July 2024 and January 2025, the Council failed to provide appropriate support with Mrs Y’s assisted visits due to care workers failing to follow instructions such as arriving late and not knowing where to take Mrs Y. He was also unhappy with the quality of personal care some care workers had delivered and asked the Care Provider to remove them from Mrs Y’s rota however despite this, these care workers returned to Mrs Y’s home several times. As a result, Mr X cancelled all further assisted visit calls.
8. We will not investigate this part of Mr X’s complaint. This is because the matter he complains of happened more than 12 months ago and so it is late. We expect people to complain to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter.
9. In May 2025, Mr X said another care worker he was unhappy with returned to Mrs Y’s home to attend to her daily care calls and so he complained to the Care Provider. The Care Provider apologised to Mr X and said it would remove the care worker from the rota. This was appropriate and what we would expect. We therefore could not achieve anything further with an investigation.
10. Mr X told the Council the Care Provider had removed some of Mrs Y’s care records. The Council said this was not the case as the Care Provider had confirmed it had retained all of Mrs Y's care records. It advised Mr X to contact the Care Provider directly and put in a formal request if he wanted access to the records. We will also not investigate this part of Mr X’s complaint. This is because there is no supporting evidence Mrs Y’s care records are missing and so we are unlikely to find fault. The Council also correctly advised Mr X with how to access the records.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because part of it is late, we could not add to the previous investigation and it is unlikely we would find fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman