Service improvements

Northumberland County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025

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 1 - 1 of 1 cases with service improvements

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

  • Northumberland County Council (24 007 546)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 09-Jan-2025

    Summary

    A support service commissioned by the Council failed to update its risk assessments and share key information about Ms X’s son, Mr X, in the weeks before he died. The NHS Trust that jointly provided the service then failed to include some key information about Mr X’s case in its internal review and made mistakes in its submissions to the coroner. As the Council commissioned the service, the Council was at fault. These faults caused Ms X avoidable uncertainty, frustration and distress. The Council has agreed to apologise, pay Ms X £800 and provide evidence of service improvements made by the NHS Trust and the support service.

    Service improvements

    A support service commissioned by the Council failed to update its riskassessments and share key information with a service user in the weeksbefore they died. The NHS Trust that jointly provided the service then failed toinclude some key information about the service user's case in its internal review and mademistakes in its submissions to the coroner. The Council has agreed to show that the support service it commissions has sent its risk assessment policy to all its staff, along with the Ombudsman's final decision on this case.The Council has agreed to reiterate to all staff at the support service, the importance of sharing information as part of multi-agency working and updating risk assessments in response to key information such as hospital admissions and updates from family and carers.The Council has agreed to show that it has reminded staff at the support service of the importance of following up promptly on contact which indicates an increased risk to a service user, such as reports from concerned family members.The Council has agreed to demonstrate that the NHS Trust it commissions partly to provide the support service, will show that it has considered how to improve its processes for double checking information sent to coroners, to ensure against mistakes in documentation.The Council has agreed to provide evidence from the NHS Trust - which partly commissions the support service - to show it has changed its policy so that family members and carers are now routinely consulted as part of the Trust's internal reviews of cases where a service user has died.

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