Somerset County Council (18 010 660)

Category : Adult care services > Other

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 29 Aug 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms A’s complaint about the behaviour and alleged neglect of a Social Worker who visited her in hospital. This is because it is unlikely he would find enough evidence of fault with the actions taken by the Social Worker to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

  1. The complainant who I shall call Ms A says the Social Worker who visited her in hospital was neglectful and not qualified to assess her needs. Ms A says the Social Worker left a letter which traumatised and upset her and was negligent. In addition, Ms A says the Council failed to respond to her complaint properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
  • it is unlikely we would find fault, or
  • the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
  • the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
  • it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
  • it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
  • we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered the information Ms A and her father provided. I sent Ms A a copy of my draft decision and considered the additional information and comments provided by Ms A and her father.

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What I found

  1. The Council’s Social Worker visited Ms A in hospital in June to assess her needs to determine whether she required any council support on discharge. Ms A declined to engage with the Social Worker. The Social Worker left a letter for Ms A advising the letter was because she had chosen not to engage with the assessment. The letter confirms the Council does not have a duty to accommodate Ms A. It says she has no live housing applications and advised Ms A of contact details if she wishes to make housing applications. It also advised Ms A that either the Social Worker or staff at the hospital could assist her to make housing application if needed.
  2. Ms A was very unhappy with the Social Worker’s behaviour and contents of the letter.
  3. The Ombudsman could not say this is fault. The Council has a duty to assess a person’s needs and, only by assessing needs can a Council determine whether a person has needs it should make provision for. Ms A says her needs are very complex and she needs specialist interventions. The Social Worker is qualified to assess a person’s needs and can arrange for specialist intervention if necessary. If a person chooses not to engage with the assessment the Council cannot determine what those needs might be. If Ms A needs the Council to make reasonable adjustments because of her disabilities she will need to let the Council know what they are. The Ombudsman could not say the letter Ms A received was negligent or inappropriate.
  4. The Care Act 2014 says councils have a duty to assess the needs of any person in their area who may be in need of community care services. Councils have a further duty to decide what services they should provide to meet a person’s needs based on the results of the assessment. Some needs may be eligible for social care funding, some needs may not.  The Council has to provide services for eligible needs but does not have to provide services to meet others.

Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014 require local authorities to carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. An assessment must be provided to all people regardless of their finances or whether the local authority thinks an individual has eligible needs. The assessment must be of the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing and the outcomes they want to achieve. It must also involve the individual and where appropriate their carer or any other person they might want involved. An adult with possible care and support needs or a carer may choose to refuse to have an assessment. In these circumstances, local authorities do not have to carry out an assessment. Where the local authority identifies that an adult lacks mental capacity and that carrying out a needs assessment would be in the adult’s best interests, the local authority must do so.

  1. Ms A says she needs a Social Worker who is a specialist in working with people with autism and Aspergers, as identified in a previous assessment. However, a previous assessment was completed in 2017 by a specialist Social Worker but Ms A disagreed with it. The Ombudsman could not say it is fault for the Council to complete an up to date assessment to identify what Ms A’s needs may be on discharge from hospital.
  2. The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms A’s complaint about the way the Council has considered her complaints or its decision not to escalate to stage two of the statutory complaints procedures. The Council has apologised that its initial responses did not refer to her complaint about the behaviour and negligence of the Social Worker. The Ombudsman could achieve no more than this. Where the substantive matters do not themselves warrant investigation, the Ombudsman will not normally consider how the Council has responded to a complaint about them. That is the case here.

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Final decision

  1. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely he would find enough evidence of fault with the actions taken by the Social Worker to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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