Summary: We will not investigate the Council’s responses to Mr X’s complaint about suffering hate and derogatory behaviour by his relative’s carers. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s responses and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

The complaint

1. Mr X says he has suffered hate and derogatory behaviour in his home by his relative’s carers. He says this has adversely affected his health. Mr X would like the carers to undergo training.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating,
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant which includes the Council’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

My assessment

5. Mr X complained to the Council that an officer wrongly accused him of making offensive comments to his relative’s carers. Mr X said the officer also accused him of not considering the best interests of his relative.
6. Mr X has explained the context for his interaction with the carers in his home. He reports he made factual comments about World War 2 as a historical programme was on his television when the carers visited.

7. The Council responded by saying:

• An officer was following up allegations they had received as the Council has a duty to check carers are treated respectfully
• The officer appreciates you agreed to limit your interactions with carers
• The officer shared information with you about safe moving and manual handling of your relative as you had said you moved your relative one time
• We apologize for any distress caused
• We have reached no decisions on the allegations, and the matter is closed.

8. Based on the above information, I consider the Council has acted reasonably. It alerted Mr X and its reasons for bringing this to his attention. It then took appropriate action to safeguard him by arranging to limit his interactions in future. And it apologised for any distress caused to him. Crucially, it refers to the reports as ‘allegations’ and has not come to any judgement.
9. We will not investigate. There is not enough evidence of fault . And further investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile as we could not establish what happened at Mr X’s home.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate as there is insufficient evidence of fault and further investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman