Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s safeguarding investigation into the care of Mrs X’s husband in a care home. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to warrant this. Mrs X is welcome to return to us about matters at the care home that were not safeguarding issues if she has first completed the care home’s complaints procedure.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said there were safeguarding issues that the Council failed to deal with when her late husband was resident in a care home.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died or who cannot authorise someone to act for them. The complaint may be made by:

• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2), as amended)

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X was dissatisfied with several matters that occurred during her late husband’s stay in a residential care home. He was funding his own care during his stay, so the Council’s duty was limited to safeguarding matters.
7. I have seen the Council’s safeguarding investigation. It decided several of the matters about which Mrs X was unhappy, such as an attempted court summons in a charging dispute, a charge for alleged damages, and two incidents involving individual carers and Mrs X, were not safeguarding matters. It told Mrs X she would need to complain separately to the care home about these matters. That is correct, so it was not fault to signpost Mrs X to the care home.
8. Mrs X referred in her complaint to us to two safeguarding matters. The first of these concerned a Covid-19 test. The Council’s safeguarding investigation found there were two contradictory versions of what happened. It was unable to resolve the difference. I would face the same difficulty if I was to investigate the matter. Therefore, it was not fault for the Council to be unable to establish which version was correct.
9. The second safeguarding matter was leaving Mr X unattended in a room while waiting for Mrs X to visit him. The accounts all agreed that this happened and that he fell while unattended. The Council’s safeguarding investigation found that this had been wrong. It decided that, despite Mr X having not suffered serious injuries on that occasion, the care home had failed to carry out a falls risk assessment and that it should not have left Mr X alone. It recommended changes to the care home’s practices to reduce the risk of harm to other residents. These are the kinds of recommendations I would expect to see where a Council finds fault in the practice of a care home.
10. In summary, the records of the safeguarding investigation show that, while the Council found fault with the care home’s actions, there was no fault in its safeguarding investigation.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to justify this.
12. Mrs X is welcome to return to us about non-safeguarding matters in the care home that the Council did not consider if she does so promptly after completing the care home’s complaints procedure.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman