Summary: We will not investigate Mr and Mrs X’s complaint about care charges and the quality of care they received. This is because the complaint is late and we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs X complain the Council:

• misrepresented their position about the level of care and support they needed following discharge from hospital;
• failed to undertake a proper assessment of their needs;
• failed to ensure carers provided the level of support they needed; and,
• provided carers that were incompetent.

2. Mr and Mrs X believe the Council should waive their outstanding care charges of just under £6,000 in recognition of the injustice they have experienced as a result of the Council's faults.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainants and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr and Mrs X were discharged from hospital in early January 2023. They spent a short time in a care home before the Council assessed their needs and commissioned care for them at home from 23 January 2023 to late June 2023.
9. Mr and Mrs X complained to the Council in March 2023. They were unhappy they had been charged for care following hospital discharge and about the quality of care they received in their own home. Mr and Mrs X also raised concerns about the way the Council had completed financial assessments to determine how much they should pay towards their care costs.
10. The Council responded to Mr and Mrs X’s complaints in late May 2023. It explained it had not received a referral to assess them for care following their hospital discharge. The Council advised Mr and Mrs X to complain to the relevant National Health Service Trust as it was responsible for such referrals to the Council. The Council also provided a detailed response to Mr and Mrs X’s concerns about their care in their own home and the financial assessments it had undertaken.
11. Mr and Mrs X have set out their reasons why they could not bring their complaints about the Council to us sooner. These include periods of hospitalisation for Mr X and delays in responses from the Council.
12. The Council took approximately 10 weeks to respond to Mr and Mrs X’s first complaint. It then provided a further response to them in early November 2023. Both responses signposted the complainants to the Ombudsman if they remained dissatisfied.
13. I am not persuaded the reasons given by Mr and Mrs X sufficiently prevented them from bringing their concerns about the Council to us within 12 months of the issues complained of occurring. While I appreciate Mr X may have been incapacitated while in hospital, I have seen no good reasons why Mrs X was unable to act on his and her own behalf in bringing these concerns to us sooner.
14. Even if we were to exercise discretion to investigate this late complaint, there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to justify our involvement. The Council has provided detailed responses to Mr and Mrs X and explained why the remedy of the nature they have requested (waiver of outstanding care charges) is not warranted.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr and Mrs X’s complaint because it is late, there is insufficient evidence of fault and we cannot achieve the outcomes they want.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman