Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the care arranged by the Council for Mrs Z. She sadly died in 2019 so we cannot seek to remedy any injustice she might have suffered. Moreover, any injustice suffered by her daughter, Mrs X is not significant enough to warrant an investigation so long after what happened.

The complaint

1. Mrs X who is complaining on behalf of herself and Mrs Z says the Council:

• Failed to act on reports of abuse and neglect.
• Took 12 weeks to get Mrs Z incontinence pants.
• Failed to provide the Mrs Z with a social worker from September 2019.
• Gave Mrs Z unauthorised medication from 5 July to 11 July which caused a serious decline to her health.
• Failed to provide a lifting and handling plan for 23 days.
• Failed to provide a body map or investigate unexplained bruising.
• Was obstructive and failed to respond to the complaint for over a year.

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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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, 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 Mrs X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs Z, who is the complainant, died in 2019 and the issues complained about occurred before that.
6. We cannot therefore achieve any remedy for her as she is no longer with us. Moreover, we could not likely separate any distress to Mrs X because of possible faults in the care Mrs Z received from the distress her mother’s failing health and death caused her. I recognise this was a difficult time, but any injustice from the Councils and care provider’s actions alone is not significant enough to warrant an investigation so long afterwards.
7. In cases where we do not investigate the matters in a complaint, we do not separately investigate the Council’s complaint handling process.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we would be unable to remedy any injustice to Mrs Z, and any injustice suffered by Mrs X from the actions complained of is not significant enough to warrant an investigation now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman