Summary: Ms C complained the Council has failed to set up the agreed Direct Payment to pay her for five hours a week of support with regards to her father’s care. We did not find fault with regards to the decision that a direct payment was no longer required to support Mr F with social outings, once he had gone into hospital. However, the Council failed to communicate clearly with Ms C about this. The Council has agreed to apologise for this.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms C, complained the Council agreed she would be paid to provide care support to her father. She said the Council agreed: to pay for 5 hours a week via a Direct Payment from 30 August 2021 onwards, until the 5 hours could be covered by a Personal Assistant (PA). However:
• She was not paid while her father was in hospital in September 2021, even though the Council continued to pay the care agency during that period.
• The Council failed to tell her that the above agreement had come to an end. As a result, she continued to provide the required / agreed support to her father without being paid.
2. Ms C was also unhappy about the quality of the support her father received from the care agency the Council had arranged for him. She said that, as a result of that, she had to provide extra support to her father to cover any shortfalls.
3. Ms C wants the Council to acknowledge it was at fault, backdate her payment for five hours a week to 30 August 2021, and pay her for five hours a week until a PA can be found to take over.

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What I have investigated

4. I have investigated Ms C’s complaint about not being paid the five hours a week that she said had been agreed on.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. 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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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information I received from Ms C and the Council. I shared a copy of my draft decision statement with Ms C and the Council and considered any comments I received, before I made my final decision.

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What I found

8. Ms C agrees she discussed with the Council that the five hours of Direct Payment (DP) would be for her to enable her father to go on social outings. However, she said it was subsequently agreed it could also be used for other things. She said she has prepared food, cleaned, changed bedding, washed her father’s clothes, made appointments, liaised with the GP, arranged transport etc.
9. In response to Ms C’s request, the care and support plan dated 31 August 2021 allocated 5 hours of support for Mr F to attend community/social groups, go on a day trip etc. The records show it was agreed that if Ms C’s father would not be able to use the hours to go out during a specific week, he could accumulate those hours and use them later on ‘in one go’ (in bulk, as a block), for instance for a whole day out.
10. The Council (officer A) told Ms C on 6 September 2021 that it would set up the DP to enable Ms C to support her father to social outings and appointments. This was in addition to the four visits a day he was receiving from a care agency. It also agreed to backdate this to 30 August 2021. The Council agreed to this because the care agency that was supporting Mr F did not have enough capacity at the time to provide these additional five hours for that specific purpose.
11. Ms C’s father went into hospital on 7 September 2021. His social worker said her father’s case would transfer to another social worker from the Hospital Team, who would arrange his discharge. That social worker would then transfer her father’s case to the Community Team and ask them to review and assess his long-term needs.
12. Mr F went home at the end of October 2021. Ms C contacted the duty team to ask why the Council had not set up a direct payment yet for the 5 hours a week. The duty team explained her father’s previous care package stopped when he went into hospital. The records show the officer was not aware of the specific DP arrangements she discussed with officer A but advised Ms C there would be an assessment of her father’s needs and she could make a complaint if she was unhappy.
13. Ms C called the Council again on 3 November 2021. The records show there was a long discussion about the DP arrangement with Ms C. The officer she spoke to was not aware of the details of the agreement but said he would look into it.
14. The officer reviewed the case notes and spoke to previous social workers involved in the case. He found the Council had not set up the direct payment. The officer updated Ms C on 4 November. The records do not show the officer clearly explained to Ms C that: the agreement was no longer in place now because of the changed circumstances, which were that her father was no longer able to go on outings since he moved into hospital on 7 September 2021. However, the officer increased the hours of support Ms C’s father was receiving from care workers.
15. Ms D sent an email on 4 December 2021 to officer A saying she had still not heard about the backdated DP payment. In her response, officer A said she agreed to set up a DP for five hours a week so Ms C could support her father with social outings. She set this up because the care agency involved at the time could not provide that additional support. Unfortunately, she did not set up the DP arrangement as her father’s circumstances changed and he went into hospital a day after she agreed she would set this up.
16. The Council agreed in April 2022, in response to her complaint, to pay Ms C a direct payment for the period 30 August to 7 September 2021.

Analysis

17. It is clear from the records that the Council agreed on 6 September 2021 to set up a Direct Payment to pay Ms C for the specific purpose of taking her father for social outings / trips. However, her father had a stroke and went into hospital the following day.
18. The Council failed to:
• Explain to Ms C at that time that, as a result of his stroke and hospital admission, there was no need for support with social outings anymore, as a result of which it would not set up a Direct Payment for this.
• Pay the backdated payment agreed for the period 30 August to 6 September 2021. Ms C has not provided support to her father to go on social outings after this date.
19. I found that, even when Ms C continued to raise this issue, she did not get a response that explained this clearly enough to her. This was partially due to officers becoming involved who had not been part of the initial agreement.
20. It took until April 2022 before the Council agreed to pay Ms C for the period 30 August to 7 September 2021.
21. The above delays resulted in distress to Ms C.

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Agreed action

22. I recommended that, within four weeks of my decision, the Council should:
• Apologise to Ms C and pay her £200 for the distress she experienced.
23. The Council has told me it has accepted my recommendations. However, Ms C has told me she does not want the £200.

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Final decision

24. For reasons explained above, I found there was fault in the way the Council communicated with Ms C, as a result of which I have upheld her complaint.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

25. I did not investigate Ms C’s complaint about the quality of the care the care agency provided, or the additional hours Ms C believed her father needed after he came out of hospital. Ms C said this resulted in her having to provide more support to her father than she wanted.
26. Ms C will first need to make a complaint about these issues to the Council, so it can investigate this through its complaint process. If Ms C remains unhappy after the Council’s response, she can refer the matter to the Ombudsman.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman