Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a care home commissioned by the Council to provide care to her late mother Ms Y and its complaint process. There would be no worthwhile outcome investigation of the complaint would achieve. Investigation by us would not add to the care firm’s investigation nor achieve a different outcome. We do not investigate complaint-handling processes where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X is the late Ms Y’s daughter. Ms Y was on end-of-life palliative care. The Council placed her in a home where she stayed for two and a half weeks until her death. Mrs X complains the home:
1. was negligent in the care of Ms Y;
2. did not recognise Ms Y was on palliative care;
3. did not provide Ms Y’s medication for about a week after she went there;
4. allowed a cat at the home to urinate and defecate in Ms Y’s room;
5. delayed in providing Ms Y with a hoist and commode;
6. failed to provide Ms Y with a liquid diet;
7. stopped her and the family visiting in the evenings, including after 8.30pm on Ms Y’s last night;
8. delayed in dealing with her complaint.
2. Mrs X says Ms Y lost the ability to stand and walk and had trouble swallowing the food provided. She says Mrs Y’s room smelled from the cat’s urine and faeces which attracted flies. Mrs X says she and the family are devastated by the lack of care to Ms Y. Mrs X wants to make sure the same level of care does not happen to anyone else.

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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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome; or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(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. Most issues in Mrs X’s complaint above are about the care, provided by the care home to Ms Y and commissioned by the Council. Mrs X considers the care provided was poor and amounted to negligence. The home does not consider it gave poor or negligent care to Ms Y. We recognise Mrs X and Ms Y’s wider family were distressed by some incidents at the home. But if there were failures in the way the home provided Ms Y’s care, the significant injustice caused by this would have been to Ms Y. We will not investigate where an investigation cannot provide a remedy because the person who could have been primarily affected has died. We cannot provide a remedy to the late Ms Y, so there would be no worthwhile outcome investigation by us of this part of the complaint would now achieve.
6. There is dispute between Mrs X and the care staff about a conversation between them on Ms Y’s last night at the home. Mrs X says she could see Ms Y was unwell but staff required her to leave by about 8.30pm. The staff report they said Mrs X could stay as long as she wanted but she told them she needed to leave then, asking them to call her if Ms Y’s condition worsened. If we were to investigate this part of the complaint, there would be no additional evidence available to us now to determine what was said by whom or which would allow us to make findings. We could not add to the care firm’s investigation and an investigation by us would not achieve a different outcome, so we will not do so.
7. Mrs X also complains about the care firm’s complaint handling. We do not investigate complaints processes in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there would be no worthwhile outcome investigation of the complaint would achieve; and
• investigation by us would not add to the care firm’s investigation nor achieve a different outcome; and
• we do not investigate complaint-handling processes where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman