Summary: We will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about the care provided to her late grandmother, Mrs C. This is because we could not likely add to previous investigations of what happened or achieve a significantly different result.

The complaint

1. Ms B complained about the care her late grandmother, Mrs C, received from her care provider before she died in April 2020 after having contracted the Covid-19 virus. Ms B says:

• Mrs C’s care provider gave no indication she was poorly during Covid-19 lockdown restrictions when family could not visit the home;
• family members were told Mrs C was well when they called and were not offered any alternative contacts such as Skype or Facetime;
• when Mrs C’s son saw Mrs C through the window in April he was told she had been ill for three days and they would call a GP. Ms B is concerned they would not have done this if family had not attended;
• Mrs C was admitted to hospital suffering from dehydration and there were concerns she had not eaten for some time;
• Although the Doctor was called on 23 March, there was no follow up call when Mrs C’s health did not improve;
• there was no record Mrs C had been bathed after 1 March;
• Mrs C was left in her nightwear, indicating she was unwell;
• care records and daily logs were completed retrospectively, not completed properly, not signed and contained conflicting information.

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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:

• we could not add to any previous investigations, or
• further investigation would not lead to a significantly different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. I considered Ms B’s comments before making a final decision.

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My assessment

6. The Council funded Mrs C’s care towards the end of her life and it arranged the placement on her behalf so any complaint about Mrs C’s care in 2020 is the Council’s responsibility. The Ombudsman has already investigated Ms B’s complaint about the Council’s safeguarding investigation into the care Mrs C received and found evidence of fault. Ms B now wants the Ombudsman to investigate the actual care Mrs C received at the time.
7. The Ombudsman found evidence of fault with the record keeping in its investigation into the safeguarding matters and recommended the Council apologise to Ms B and ensure all outcomes of the findings of the safeguarding investigation were implemented by the care provider. The Ombudsman was satisfied this has happened.
8. While Ms B and her family have not had all the answers they want about the care Mrs C received, we have already found the relevant records were not adequate. Given the faults we now know existed in the record keeping, it is unlikely we could establish from further investigation anything new or different about what happened during the period Ms B is concerned about.
9. Ms B alleges Mrs C was left without food, water, the Care Provider did not bathe Mrs C and she was given poor personal hygiene care. Given the timings of those events, the exceptional circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown restrictions, and the difficult conditions all care providers were in at the time, it is unlikely further investigation by the Ombudsman now would be able to conclude Mrs C was not properly cared for. In addition, given Mrs C is now deceased, we would not be able to provide her with a remedy for any fault an investigation might uncover.
10. I recognise Ms B and her family would have been distressed by the timing and circumstances of Mrs C dying, but it is not our role to consider whether anyone’s actions or inactions caused or contributed to that. The speed and frequency of transmission of Covid-19 in this pandemic and the extent of deaths from the infection and its effects on vulnerable, older people especially at the time would mean we could not consider what happened against what we might expect in normal times.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because further investigation could not likely add to previous investigations of what happened or achieve a significantly different result.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman