Summary: We will not investigate Mrs A’s complaint, brought by Mrs B, about the care visits from a Council-commissioned care provider and the information the provider gave in response to the complaint. We could not add to the Council’s investigation nor achieve a different outcome, and the matters complained of did not cause Mrs A sufficient significant personal injustice to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs A is Mrs B’s grandmother. Mrs A had three weeks of domiciliary visits for help with two of her meals from Universal Care, a firm commissioned by the Council. Mrs B complains the care firm:
1. has provided data to the Council about the care visits which she disputes;
2. visited over an hour later than the allotted time on one breakfast visit;
3. failed to tell Mrs A that the breakfast visit would be late;
4. failed to recognise Mrs A’s visits were time-sensitive because of her need to control her medical conditions.
2. Mrs B says the matter has caused Mrs A severe anxiety, undue stress, emotional and mental strain, financial stress and affected her safety and security. She wants the Council to improve its commissioned care firms’ service and to waive or reduce Mrs A’s care charges.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mrs B and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. During the Council’s complaint process, the care provider submitted records of its care visits to Mrs A. Mrs B considers the data is wrong for one breakfast visit during which she was present and this casts doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the records for her. The Council identified the breakfast visit was delayed by over an hour and that the care provider did not contact Mrs A to warn her of the delay. We recognise Mrs B disbelieves the visit information from the care firm. But an investigation by us would not have available to it any more evidence about the timings and lengths of those visits than that which was before the Council during its own complaint process. We could not determine the accuracy or otherwise of the visit data to allay Mrs B’s suspicions about it. We will not investigate because we could not add to the Council’s investigation process nor achieve a different outcome here.
6. Even if there were additional errors in the care provision, we will not investigate further. Mrs A had care visits on 15 days over a three-week period and then ended the service. We recognise Mrs A had some understandable worry and stress around the management of her diet-related condition and some safety issues when those visits were not as she wanted. But the events were over a short period, the visits are not ongoing, did not seriously affect Mrs A’s condition nor cause her other significant harm. There has not been a sufficiently significant injustice to her from the matters complained of to warrant us investigating.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mrs A’s complaint because:
• an investigation by us would not add to the Council’s investigation nor achieve a different outcome; and
• the matters complained of have not caused her sufficient significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman