Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not investigating or responding to safeguarding concerns about hospital ward cleaning standards which worried the complainant’s son when he was a patient. This is because there is neither evidence of Council fault we could investigate effectively, nor evidence of significant injustice to the complainant or to her son which would warrant the Ombudsman investigating.

The complaint

1. Ms B says the Council failed properly to investigate safeguarding concerns she and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) raised with it in December 2018 and April 2019. Ms B’s adult son became concerned about neglect while he was in hospital receiving treatment for leukaemia because of the standards of cleaning and hygiene he experienced on hospital wards. Ms B says this affected him mentally and emotionally because the medical treatment affected his immune system.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response to her complaint.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms B first approached the Council for her son in December 2018 after he started to become anxious about the general standard of cleaning on the ward where he was a patient. She explained their concerns to a social worker, but the Council took no action. Given what I understand about the nature of those concerns, it is unlikely they warranted safeguarding enquiries under section 42 of the Care Act 2014. So, we could not say the Council was at fault.
6. I recognise Ms B’s son may have considered the hospital managers were causing neglect by not maintaining suitable hygiene standards, but the Council was entitled to reach a different view. As the events leading to Ms B’s complaint happened over two years before she first complained to us in 2021 we could not investigate effectively. On balance of probability, it is also unlikely we could decide the Council not acting on Ms B’s contact with it caused injustice to her or her son.
7. Ms B contacted CQC in early 2019 and I understand it told her it would send a safeguarding referral to the Council. The Council later said it did not receive anything until April-May 2019, and it later transpired that was correct. When the Council received that referral in 2019 Ms B’s son had, sadly, died. He did not contract any infection in hospital, but died of leukaemia. There is therefore no evidence the Council failed to respond to a CQC referral, nor of it having caused Ms B or her son significant injustice by not doing so.
8. I recognise Ms B may have other complaints about the NHS hospital trust involved, but they are separate matters and do not affect my consideration of her complaint about the Council.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Ms B’s complaint because there is neither evidence of Council fault we could investigate effectively, nor evidence of significant injustice to her or to her son which would warrant the Ombudsman investigating now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman