Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the investigation into a fall his father had while a resident at a Council run care home. We would be unlikely to find fault with the investigation and we are satisfied with the action the Council proposes to take.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the investigation into a fall his father had while a resident at a Council run care home. He says the Council took too long to investigate and did not investigate properly. He wants the Council to investigate properly and to include him in the investigation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 if we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions.

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered:
• the information in Mr X’s complaint;
• the Council’s responses to him;
• details of the investigation provided by the Council;
• photographs provided by Mr X.
4. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Mr X. I considered his comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

5. Mr X’s father, Mr Y, was a resident in a Council run care home. Mr Y died in March 2020.
6. Mr Y fell while at the care home in January 2020. Mr X says the explanation given by the care home did not match that given by his father.
7. The Council started an investigation into Mr X’s allegations that the information recorded by the care home did not match his father’s account of the accident.
8. The Council completed the investigation in mid-February 2020 and found Mr X’s allegations to be unsubstantiated. However, the Council did not tell Mr X about the outcome of the investigation until he chased the Council in August 2020.
9. The Council says it cannot share full details of the investigation with Mr X because it treated the allegations as a disciplinary investigation against staff at the home.
10. The details of the investigation provided by the Council show the Council investigated Mr X’s concerns in an appropriate and proportionate manner. It considered the statements made by Mr X and his sister, interviewed witnesses, viewed the room in which Mr Y fell and consulted manual and computerised records at the care home.

Analysis

11. The information provided by the Council shows it investigated Mr X’s concerns as we would expect it to have done. We are unlikely to find fault with how the Council investigated.
12. However, the Council did not tell Mr X about the outcome of the investigation until he chased this up monthly later.
13. The Council has agreed to our recommendation to apologise to Mr X for the delay in telling Mr X what the outcome of the investigation was. It has also said it will provide Mr X with more detail about the findings of the investigation.
14. I am satisfied the Council’s proposed actions are an appropriate and proportionate remedy to Mr X’s complaint.

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Final decision

15. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because we would be unlikely to find fault in how the Council investigated the incident and we are satisfied with the action the Council proposes to take.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman