Summary: Pine View Care Homes Ltd failed to act on Ombudsman’s recommendations

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigates complaints about councils and adult social care providers. If we find fault that has caused injustice, we make recommendations for the council or care provider to put things right.

We are totally independent. Our recommendations are usually implemented. However, in this case, the adult social care provider, Pine View Care Homes Ltd, (‘the Provider’) has refused to comply with our recommendations following our investigation about services it provided.

We have required Pine View Care Homes Ltd to publish this notice under Section 34I of the Local Government Act 1974 to hold it accountable for not implementing our recommendations.

The Ombudsman’s findings of fault

We investigated a complaint about the Pine View Care Homes Ltd residential services provided to the complainant.

We found Pine View Care Homes Ltd:

• sent rude and threatening responses to legitimate complaints;
• wrongly threatened to appoint enforcement agents to recover a disputed debt;
• threatened to send enforcement agents to an elderly and vulnerable person’s property after the complainant escalated their complaint;
• failed to tell the complainant about their right to approach the Ombudsman with their complaint.

These faults meant the complainant suffered injustice, in the form of intimidation and distress.

The Ombudsman’s recommendations

We recommended Pine View Care Homes Ltd:

• apologise for the distress caused
• pay the complainant £150 for the distress caused, and having to pursue their complaint with us

The Provider’s response

Pine View Care Homes Ltd has refused to carry out the recommendations for the following reasons:

• It says it intends to take legal action against the complainant for alleged unpaid debts, and until the alleged debt is paid it will not take any further action in respect of the complaint. 

We are not satisfied with the actions of Pine View Care Homes Ltd, which leaves the injustice not put right for the complainant. It has not provided any evidence of unpaid debts, or ongoing legal action, which would suggest that our recommendations should not be fulfilled.

We will share this notice with the Care Quality Commission – the regulator for health and social care in England.

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