One of the decisions open to JW Investigators at assessment is to ‘separate’ a case. This can take a number of forms:

• Separated - Single Council (no health case to investigate)
• Separated - Single Health (no Council to investigate)
• Separated - Referred back to PHSO, Council case closed at assessment
• Separated - Referred back to PHSO, Council case forwarded for LGO investigation Separated - Referred back to PHSO, LGO has already investigated

However, the decision reasons highlighted above can cause issues in dealing with a review about the decision at assessment to refer back to PHSO. This is because the council case will still be open, and could either be waiting to be allocated at Investigation or has already been allocated. Therefore, where we would normally change the case owner to that of the reviewer when considering a review, in these limited circumstances we should not do so.

We should use the ‘other contact’ screen as normal to record the review (as the review is about an assessment decision) but the case owner for the council case should remain as either the allocated investigation case owner, or no-one if the case is in the unallocated queue. Tasks should be set as normal to advise the reviewer of the review request in respect of the Assessment decision but the task should also include that the review request is about a separated decision.

Once the reviewer has made a decision about the review, they can complete the ‘other contact’ screen as usual but should make no other changes to the case, unless they make a decision that the separated decision was incorrect, at which point they will need to discuss the issue with the AO for joint working. The choice at this stage is likely to depend on progress made investigating the council case and therefore what are the available, practical options for completing a joint investigation.