East Riding of Yorkshire Council (23 017 285)

Category : Adult care services > Safeguarding

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 20 Mar 2024

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about faulty heating in a care home. That is because we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

The complaint

  1. Mrs X complained on behalf of her deceased mother, Mrs Y. She said Mrs Y died in hospital after developing breathing difficulties. She said in the six weeks before her death, the heating in Mrs Y’s care home bedroom had stopped working. Mrs X believes the faulty heating may have contributed to Mrs Y’s death.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:
  • we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
  2. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

  1. In the Council’s response to Mrs X’s complaint, it said the Care Home identified Mrs Y’s heating was not working at the start of October. It said a plumber could not mend the heating immediately, so the Care Home supplied Mrs Y an electric fan heater. It said staff checked Mrs Y on a regular basis and did not report her room was cold. It said Mrs Y had capacity and she did not report feeling cold. It said Mrs Y died of a bacterial or viral infection.
  2. The Council confirmed it completed a safeguarding enquiry into the report of no heating. That recommended that in future, residents should be moved as a matter of urgency if there was faulty heating. It confirmed it had reported the safeguarding concerns to the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
  3. Despite the findings of the safeguarding investigation, we will not investigate this complaint further. The Council has fully investigated Mrs X’s concern the faulty heating may have contributed to Mrs Y’s death and found no evidence to support it. It has set out reasons for this. We could not add to the Council’s investigations.

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Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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