Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Care Provider’s handling of an allegation of assault because we could not add to its previous investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Care Provider’s handling of her allegation of assault by a member of its staff against Mrs Y. Mrs X says she has suffered distress and this has impacted her mental health. She also fears for other residents of the care home.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about a personnel issue. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 4, as amended)
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.(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mrs X.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. I cannot investigate personnel matters including the Care Provider’s decision not to suspend its staff member pending investigation, the Care Provider treating the complaint as a personnel matter or the Care Provider’s decisions on any disciplinary action, as explained at paragraph 2.
8. The Care Provider investigated the allegation and decided what happened based on the information provided by the parties. I cannot question the Care Provider’s judgement as to what happened and where it is one person’s word against the other, further investigation by us would not achieve anything more. This because we could not reach a finding, even on the balance of probabilities, as to which person’s account was more accurate.
9. The Care Provider accepted the staff member overstepped professional boundaries, gave feed back to the staff member to prevent recurrence and moved them to work on a different floor. Both the Council and the CQC were made aware of the incident.
10. It is not proportionate to investigate the Care Provider’s complaint handling when we are not investigating the substantive matter.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman