Service improvements

Kent County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024

Find out more about service improvements

When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.

Showing 11 - 20 of 37 cases with service improvements

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Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Kent County Council as a CSV file.

  • Kent County Council (23 001 905)

    Category: Education Date: 16-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Mrs X complains the Council removed a Personal Transport Budget (PTB) for her son without notice in October 2022. Mrs X says it took the Council five months to reinstate the PTB. Mrs X also complains the Council failed to respond to her complaint about this. The Council has acknowledged there was a delay and it took four months to complete the review of the PTB. We have found further fault with the Council’s request for medical evidence and complaint handling. To remedy the injustice caused to Mrs X the Council has agreed to apologise, make a symbolic payment and service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council will issue guidance to staff explaining that applicants should be advised of the options available for obtaining and submitting medical evidence in support of their PTB appeal

  • Kent County Council (22 018 130)

    Category: Education Date: 27-Mar-2024

    Summary

    Miss B complained about matters connected to the Council’s management of a personal budget she receives to meet some of her child’s special educational needs. We upheld the complaint, mainly because the Council delayed too long in responding to Miss B’s complaints. We consider this caused her an injustice, as distress. The Council has accepted our findings and at the end of this statement, we set out the action it has agreed to remedy this injustice.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed that it would try to arrange a meeting with health service commissioning bodies to discuss how it can improve current arrangements and publicity materials to support parents / carers who may want to request a personal budget to meet both education and health needs identified in an Education, Health and Care Plan. The Council agreed to also write to us to tell us the outcome of any meeting and actions agreed.

  • Kent County Council (22 017 780)

    Category: Education Date: 16-Oct-2023

    Summary

    Mrs X complained there was a failure to provide Occupational Therapy (OT) support that is part of her daughter’s EHC provision. She also complained the Council failed to respond to her complaint. We found the Council had failed to provide the required support over a prolonged period and it had not responded to her complaint. We recommended the Council made a payment to Mrs X and to her daughter and that it developed an action plan to address the lack of Occupational Therapist resources that led to the problem in her daughter’s case.

    Service improvements

    The Council should develop an action plan to show how it intends to address the ongoing lack of Occupational Therapy availability in its area. This should be reported to the relevant committee for democratic scrutiny and an update should be provided to the Ombudsman to set out the actions agreed to improve this area of provision.

  • Kent County Council (22 017 713)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Dec-2023

    Summary

    Miss B complained the Council failed to ensure her son received full-time education, failed to identify a suitable secondary school placement, failed to provide updates, failed to carry out annual reviews of her son’s education, health and care plan and failed to send her a final education, health and care plan following a review in October 2022. The Council failed to put in place any education provision between April and November 2022, failed to identify a suitable secondary school and failed to carry out annual reviews properly. An apology, payment to Miss B, reminder to officers and amendment to processes is satisfactory remedy.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind officers in education of the Council's duties to provide alternative provision when a child of statutory school age is out of school. The Council should consider sharing a copy of our focus report 'Out of school…. Out of sight?' and our final decision with the reminder.The Council will remind officers dealing with EHCPs of the need to follow the code of practice when receiving annual review paperwork from schools.The Council will draw up a plan, to be shared with the Ombudsman, to show how it will deal with similar cases in future to ensure drift does not occur when a child is out of school. This should set out a clear pathway for taking timely action to decide whether to either take enforcement action for non-attendance, plan for re-integration into school, seek an alternative placement, or offer alternative provision for medical or other reasons;The Council will ensure it has procedures in place for checking it takes the necessary action following review meetings to issue amendment notices and draft and final EHCPs.

  • Kent County Council (22 017 446)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 01-Aug-2023

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council agreed to allow her late father Mr Y to leave residential care and return home despite him having dementia, fluctuating mental capacity and a high risk of falls and self-neglect. The Council was not at fault in the way it assessed Mr Y’s capacity and allowed him to go home. It has already acknowledged poor communication and a delay in referring Mrs X for a carers assessment in its complaint response. It has already apologised for this which was appropriate. It has agreed to provide us with evidence it has carried out the actions it said it would take to prevent a recurrence of these faults in future.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with evidence it has shared with the principal social worker the need to review practice in the operational teams to encourage early carer referrals.The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with evidence it has developed a step by step overview of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards process to be shared with families, carers and relatives of those subject to assessment.The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with evidence it has reminded senior managers to have conversations with families and carers who have concerns where matters are escalated to them.

  • Kent County Council (22 016 843)

    Category: Education Date: 09-Jan-2024

    Summary

    Mrs X complains the Council has not dealt properly with her son Y’s Special Educational Needs. The Council delayed producing Y’s EHCP and didn’t respond to Mrs X. Y was left with no provision and Mrs X had to pay fees. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X, pay Mrs X £14,104 in respect of costs incurred for Y’s education placement, £2532 for her legal fees, pay Mrs X and Y £250 each in respect of avoidable distress, pay Mrs X £100 in respect of time and trouble as well as produce an action plan to show how it will meet statutory timescales for EHCP annual reviews.

    Service improvements

    Produce an action plan to demonstrate how the council will meet statutory timescales for EHCP annual reviews.

  • Kent County Council (22 015 764)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the Council’s failure to arrange an early review and the scheduled annual review of her Education, Health and Care Plan. This led to a failure to provide support for her special educational needs for two and a half terms. We have found the Council to be at fault. We also found fault with the Council’s complaint handling. To remedy the injustice to Miss X, the Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment and take action to improve its service.

    Service improvements

    The Council will reflect on the issues raised in this decision statement and identify any areas of service improvement, particularly around communications, complaint handling and delay in the EHCP process.

  • Kent County Council (22 015 377)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 19-Jun-2023

    Summary

    There was fault in the care that was provided to Mr C and there was poor communication relating to the safeguarding enquiries into the care. Both councils have agreed to apologise, to pay a financial remedy and to remind staff of the importance of involving the person at the centre of a safeguarding enquiry in the enquiry.

    Service improvements

    •Remind relevant staff of the importance of keeping the adult who is the subject of a safeguarding enquiry at the centre of the enquiry.

  • Kent County Council (22 015 189)

    Category: Education Date: 25-Oct-2023

    Summary

    Miss X complained about how the Council provided for her son, Y’s, special educational needs. There were delays in reviewing Y’s Education Health and Care plan and authorising payments for the support the Council agreed to provide. The Council also communicated poorly with Miss X. The Council agreed to apologise, pay a financial remedy and confirm the ongoing personal budget. It also agreed to review how it communicates between its teams and how it authorises personal budgets.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to review how its SEND Therapies team process and approve personal budgets for Education Health and Care plans to ensure these are processed promptly and families are kept aware of any delays.The Council agreed to review the working arrangements between its SEND and SEND Therapies teams to ensure that communication between the two teams are effective and that any complaints involving both teams are responded to jointly.

  • Kent County Council (22 014 981)

    Category: Education Date: 23-Oct-2023

    Summary

    The complainant alleged that the Council delayed in issuing an amended Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, after his annual review of October 2020, delayed in providing treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) required by his EHC Plan, and that the amount of the budget for his direct Occupational Therapy was insufficient. Based on the information to date, we find some fault by the Council causing an injustice. We recommended ways to remedy the injustice caused by the faults, which the Council has accepted. We are therefore closing the complaint.

    Service improvements

    We decided that the Council's failure to arrange an Occupational Therapy assessment for the complainant was a result of a service failure which may have affected other pupils with special educational needs. the Council will:if another person complains about the delay in an Occupational Therapy assessment, it will accept fault and remedy any injustice in line with our guidance on remedies and how it remedied the complainant's injustice.the Council will :provide a prompt way whereby those in receipt of personal budgets, who are unhappy with the amount offered, can have the decision reviewed, as required by the guidance.

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