Intake

Where a complaint appears to be primarily about health and/or parliamentary bodies within the remit of PHSO, or about social landlord matters within the remit of HOS, staff in the Intake team will signpost complainants to PHSO or HOS.

Where a complaint appears to be a matter for the LGSCO, it will be referred to Assessment.

Assessment

If not already identified by Intake, Investigators are responsible for identifying cases containing issues for PHSO or HOS and which may therefore be suitable for joint working. For PHSO, these will mostly be cases where there are closely linked health and social care issues. For HOS, these will be cases where there has been or should have been some interaction between the landlord and one or more local authority services.

As examples, recent PHSO cases have included:

• delayed discharge of a man from hospital which related to disputes about suitability of residential care;
• poor care given to an elderly woman with dementia in a care home admitted to hospital on several occasions for NHS acute care;
• alleged delay in diagnosis of autism, lack of access to specialist services and possible child protection issues;
• failure to provide health/social aftercare services to a young man who had previously been detained in hospital (s117 of the Mental Health Act).

Relevant HOS cases could include:

• where, in reaching a decision on a tenancy management issue, the landlord relied on information from the local authority e.g.: adult social care, environmental health, housing benefit
• where there appears to have been poor liaison or cooperation between the landlord and the local authority.

Potential joint working cases which appear to contain both a health and local authority element will be assessed in accordance with the instructions in the Joint Working Manual. The remainder must be assessed in the same way as all other cases, to determine whether they should be passed on for Investigation by LGSCO.  

HOS cases

We have a Memorandum of Understanding with the Housing Ombudsman Service.

Where an HOS case is not passed for Investigation but there may be some issues for the HOS, Assessment staff should make this clear in the letter of closure to the complainant. If the complainant is judged to be vulnerable we can pass the information directly to HOS, providing the complainant gives us their consent. Separate guidance about consent is on the intranet and the consent form is on ECHO.

HOS will signpost potential complainants to us. Where HOS considers a case they are dealing with may be suitable for joint working, they will consult the nominated Assistant Ombudsman in line with the procedure here.