Sunderland City Council (23 012 499)

Statement Upheld Residential care 06-Jun-2024

Summary: Mrs X complained about the quality of care the Council’s commissioned care provider, the mews care home provided to her late aunt. We find the Council was at fault. This caused significant distress to Mrs X and her family. The Council has agreed to make several recommendations to address this injustice caused by fault.

Sunderland City Council (23 013 021)

Statement Upheld Special educational needs 22-Sep-2024

Summary: Mr X complained on behalf of his daughter, Mrs Y. He complains about the delays in the education, health and care plan process, poor communication and lack of support. We find the Council was at fault for delays in the process and poor communication. This caused significant distress to Mrs Y and Mr X spent unnecessary time and trouble contacting the Council. The Council has agreed to make several recommendations to address this injustice caused by fault.

Sunderland City Council (23 010 640)

Statement Upheld Residential care 26-Sep-2024

Summary: Ms C complained about the Council’s handling of her safeguarding concerns about her parent’s care home, and the support provided by its Adult Social care team. We found no fault in Council’s safeguarding process. The Council accepted it had failed to ensure a social worker was allocated to their cases and appropriate notes were not kept, which caused Ms C distress and uncertainty. We also found a significant delay in its complaint’s response. The Council will apologise and make payment to acknowledge the injustice Ms C experienced.

Sunderland City Council (24 008 565)

Statement Upheld Assessment and care plan 16-Oct-2024

Summary: The Ombudsmen will not investigate this complaint about an avoidably delayed hospital discharge. The Trust and the Council have already accepted there were failings and apologised for them. It is unlikely that an investigation would be able to find evidence of an unremedied injustice.

Sunderland City Council (23 020 962)

Statement Upheld Cemeteries and crematoria 09-Dec-2024

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council removed her family’s memorial tree in a crematorium without warning. Mrs X said this caused unnecessary and avoidable distress to the family who visit the site nearly every week. We find the Council at fault, and this caused injustice. The Council has agreed to make a payment to Mrs X.

Sunderland City Council (24 002 134)

Statement Upheld Child protection 19-Feb-2025

Summary: Mr C complained about the Council’s involvement in a child protection investigation for his child and how it handled the children’s statutory complaint process. We found no evidence the Council’s investigation was so procedurally flawed that the conclusions it reached should be questioned. We therefore found no evidence of fault by the Council. It did cause a short delay in the statutory complaints process, but this did not cause Mr C a significant injustice.