Summary: Ms B complains on behalf of her mother, Ms A, about her care and treatment. We will not investigate the complaint as we are not satisfied Ms A has fully consented to Ms B complaining to us on her behalf. We do not therefore consider Ms B suitable to bring the complaint to us.

The complaint

1. Ms A’s daughter, Ms B, complains about South Hackney Mental Health Team’s care of Ms A. East London NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) is responsible for this service. Ms B complains that since 2019 the mental health team has:

• Over-medicated Ms A,
• Abused Ms A and exercised coercive control over her,
• Prevented Ms A from accessing appropriate care from alternative services, and
• Prevented Ms A from being housed.

2. Ms B also complains about the London Borough of Hackney (the Council). She complains it failed to intervene and help Ms A despite knowing she was being overmedicated and abused.
3. Ms B said as a result of these failings Ms A has been:

• Mentally and physically affected,
• Homeless for over one year,
• Left with a brain injury due to being over medicated.

4. Ms B also complains the mental health team are committing fraud via the Personal Health Budget programme
5. In bringing her complaint to the Ombudsmen Ms B said she would like “at least £10,000 in compensation due to distress, upset, neglect, danger, humiliation caused”. In addition, Ms B said she would like the Ombudsmen to help other patients.
6. Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (the MHA) imposes a duty on health and social services to provide free aftercare services to patients who have been detained under section 3 of the MHA. Ms A is eligible for section 117 aftercare. The Council and North East London Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG) share the responsibility for ensuring Ms A receives the aftercare she needs. The CCG and Council cannot delegate these duties, regardless of the day‑to‑day arrangements for delivering the person’s aftercare. In view of this, the Ombudsmen always include the relevant council and CCG in their consideration of complaints about s117 aftercare.

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The Ombudsmen’s role and powers

7. The Ombudsmen have the power to jointly consider complaints about health and social care. Since April 2015, a single team has considered these complaints acting on behalf of both Ombudsmen. (Local Government Act 1974, section 33ZA,as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 18ZA)
8. The Ombudsmen may investigate complaints made on behalf of someone else if they have given their consent. The Ombudsmen may also investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who cannot authorise someone to act for them, if the Ombudsmen consider them to be a suitable representative. (Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 9(3) and Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2)) (Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(1))

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered Ms B’s written complaints along with the supporting information she provided via email and spoke to her on the telephone. I shared a confidential draft decision with Ms B and considered her comments on it.

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What I found

10. Complaints can be made ‘on behalf of’ someone by a wide range of people or organisations, but only with that person’s consent. We generally expect complaints to be made to us by the ‘person affected’, in this case Ms A. A person can authorise someone else to complain to us on their behalf, providing the give informed consent. This means their consent must be:

• given voluntarily (with no coercion),
• given by someone who has capacity to consent,
• given by someone who has been fully informed about the issue.

11. We also need to consider whether the ‘person affected’ also consents to their representative receiving personal information about them during the investigation of their complaint.
12. Ms B is Ms A’s daughter. However, a close family relationship does not give an automatic right to access a person’s confidential information, or to act on their behalf.
13. In December 2021 Ms B emailed the Ombudsmen a consent form, to give Ms A’s authorisation for Ms B to represent her. This had been completely electronically with both Ms A’s and Ms B’s name and signature typed in. There is no physical signature from either party.
14. Professionals have approached the Court of Protection over concerns that Ms A’s family have been restricting professionals’ access to Ms A. Professionals have concerns that, because of this, Ms A’s best interests are not being properly served.
15. Ms B advised us she considers Ms A has the capacity to make her own choices. The nature of the professionals’ application to the courts suggests they share this view.
16. In this context the consent form sent to us in December 2021 is not adequate to assure us that Ms A knowingly and wilfully consents to Ms B bringing this complaint to the Ombudsmen on her behalf.
17. We do not have any contact details Ms A – no phone number, no email address and no street address. We could send a consent form to Ms B and ask her to ask Ms A to physically complete it and post it to us. However, given the reasons for the professionals’ application to the courts, we could not confidently rely on anything we received in response as there would be no firm way of establishing who signed and in what circumstances they were signed. Also, as services are unable to access Ms A we cannot send a form to a Care Coordinator/Social Worker to ask them to give it to her.
18. Overall, despite the close family connection we cannot say M B is a suitable person to bring this complaint about Ms A’s care to the Ombudsmen.

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Decision

19. We will not investigate this complaint as we cannot be assured that Ms A has fully consented to Ms B representing her. We do not therefore consider Ms B is suitable to bring the complaint to us.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsmen

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman