Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council charging her mother Mrs Y for an interim care home placement. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant us investigating. Our investigation would not add to the Council’s investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X is Mrs Y’s daughter. Mrs Y lives with Mrs X in Mrs X’s property. Mrs Y was due to be discharged from hospital to live with Mrs X but her property first required development. Mrs Y was discharged to a care home in the interim. Mrs X complains a Council social worker told her that Mrs Y would not have to pay for the care home placement, but then she was billed for the stay.
2. Mrs X says the unexpected bill caused her and her mother great stress and upset. She says Mrs Y is having sleepless nights because of the fees and the matter is affecting their mental health. Mrs X wants the Council to honour the agreement she believes she made with the social worker and waive all the nursing home charges.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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.

(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 from Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council’s complaint response sets out the Council’s correspondence with Mrs X and Mrs Y about Mrs Y’s short-term care home placement between December 2022 and February 2023. The social worker sent Mrs X its ‘Paying for Care Services’ booklet in January. They advised Mrs Y would need to be financially assessed so the Council could calculate her contribution to the care charges. Mrs X and the social worker also discussed third party top-up fees. Mrs X and Mrs Y ultimately chose a care home placement which charged at the Council’s standard room rate, so no such top-up was needed. The evidence indicates the Council advised Mrs X and Mrs Y that the interim care home placement would be chargeable to Mrs Y, subject to the outcome of the financial assessment. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council here to warrant us investigating
6. We recognise Mrs X says the Council’s social worker told her in telephone conversations that Mrs Y’s care placement would not be charged to her. The Council says it does not have recordings of those calls so cannot review what was said. This means information about Mrs X’s discussion of the care placement fees would also not be available to us, were we to investigate. An investigation would therefore not add to that already conducted by the Council, which is a further reason for us not to investigate.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify us investigating; and
• investigating would not add to the investigation conducted by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman