Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to safeguarding concerns raised by the complainant. This is because there is nothing we could add to the previous investigation by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mrs C, says that:
• The Council did not investigate adequately her safeguarding concerns regarding alleged poor quality care in their care home; and
• The Council did not respond to her communications raising safeguarding concerns, or communicate with her regarding its actions in relation to safeguarding concerns in the home.

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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 could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by Mrs C and by the Council. I also sent Mrs C a draft decision for her views, and considered her comments.

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What I found

4. Mrs C’s parents were residents of a care home. Mrs C was not happy with the quality of care they were receiving. She complained to the Care Provider, and raised safeguarding concerns to the Council. Mrs C’s parents have since both died, but she continues to raise concerns about their end of life care, in connection with her complaint about the Council’s handling of this issue.
5. The Council says that concerns relating to other residents, and some other general concerns, had also been raised about the Care Home, and so it initiated a general institutional safeguarding enquiry, which included the issues raised about Mrs C’s parents.
6. The Council says that it intended to discuss the allegations with Mrs C’s father to obtain his views, but Mrs C’s mother died the day before the officers’ visit to the home for this purpose, on 16 August. The officers therefore did not speak with him as it would have been inappropriate on that day.
7. The Council has agreed that it should have made arrangements to go back at a later date to speak with Mrs C’s father. The officers should have asked for his views, and discussed with him whether to start an individual safeguarding investigation.
8. The Council has also agreed that it should have responded to Mrs C to let her know about its decision to subsume her concerns into an institutional safeguarding investigation rather than carrying out an individual one. It recognises that it should have provided her with information both about the strategy meeting that took place, particularly as her concerns were discussed, and the outcome of the institutional safeguarding investigation.
9. The Council has apologised for these faults.
10. The Council’s safeguarding investigation concluded that there was not a high risk of neglect or poor physical care for residents of the Care Home, but it did raise other issues around record keeping, care planning and training. It has addressed these issues with the Care Provider.
11. Mrs C is not satisfied with the outcome of the safeguarding investigation. She does not accept the Council’s view, and has complained to the Ombudsman about its conclusions and has put forward her own view of the quality of the care provision for her parents.
12. We will not investigate the complaint however. This is because we could not add anything further to the Council’s investigation into the actions of the Care Home, or provide a different outcome. It has also agreed that there was fault in the way it dealt with Mrs C’s specific concerns and has apologised.
13. Additionally, the complaints about the Care Provider have been considered separately under the reference 17019831 and we will not reconsider them here.
14. If Mrs C has concerns about nursing care provided by a registered nurse at the Care Home, she has the right to take them to the relevant NHS body and then to the Parliamentary and Health Care Ombudsman.

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Final decision

15. I will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot add anything further to the Council’s investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman