Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about adult social care financial assessment. This is because there is no remaining significant injustice since the NHS is now paying all the care charges. There is no worthwhile outcome from an Ombudsman investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr B says the Council failed to properly calculate his wife (Mrs C’s) contribution toward adult social care charges. Mr B says the Council delayed responding to him and is unhappy with how the Council dealt with his complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died. The complaint may be made by:

• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2), as amended)

3. Mrs C has died, we have accepted Mr B as a suitable representative.
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 significant enough injustice to the person who complained to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, 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. When an adult receives care support from a council the council can ask them to contribute to the costs. The Council must complete a financial assessment to decide what, if anything, the person can afford to contribute to their care. The Council did this, but Mr B says the Council made errors in the assessment.
8. The NHS has decided to award and backdate continuing healthcare funding (CHC) to cover all Mrs C’s care costs. Mr B has a separate complaint about the original decision to refuse CHC, but that is not within the Ombudsman’s powers to investigate and is a matter for the NHS.
9. Because the NHS has now covered the costs of Mrs C’s care, any fault alleged in the Council’s financial assessment causes no financial injustice to Mr B.
10. We do not investigate all complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
11. I recognise Mr B has had time, trouble, and frustration. But we would not consider that significant enough to justify an investigation. Mr B has outstanding questions, but we would not investigate solely to get answers for someone.
12. Mr B is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because there is no significant remaining injustice that would justify an Ombudsman investigation. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome given Mr B is no longer required to pay any charges the Council assessed for Mrs C’s care.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman