Summary: We will not investigate a Care Provider’s response to Miss Y’s complaint about poor care. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. We are unlikely to be able to add to the investigation already carried out.

The complaint

1. In summary, Miss Y complains about poor care received by her late relative, Mrs X, and says she has received an inadequate response to her complaint.
2. Miss Y would like an investigation, apology and compensation for her time and trouble taken to complain.

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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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation responsible. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant which includes the Care Provider’s response.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My Assessment

7. As the Care Provider’s domiciliary care service was commissioned by the Council, we hold the Council as the body responsible for the service.
8. Miss X complains about several instances of poor care, for example: a key safe not being used by carers, two incidents of lateness by carers, a catheter not being emptied, a care plan being removed by a carer and so on.
9. The Care Provider has responded to Miss Y’s concerns providing comments after interviewing its carers and listening to voicemails left by Miss Y to it. For example, it found the key safe was not used as the code was not provided when the service started. It found one documented instance of lateness due to staff absence and says it was not informed of the other occasion. In relation to the catheter, it says its records show Mrs X cut it due to it being full. And that the care plan was removed by a carer on Miss Y’s instructions to a carer to take the plan away and read it.
10. Overall, the Care Provider says Miss Y’s complaints were vexatious. It wrote that most of their staff attending Mrs X found Miss Y ‘rude’. It also said it had not been allowed to investigate her complaint as it would normally do due to it receiving increasingly ‘bullying’ emails.
11. We will not investigate. This is because we are unlikely to be able to add to the investigation already carried out. A lot of the evidence appears to be Miss Y’s version of events against the carers’ accounts and an investigation by us is unlikely to add anything worthwhile.
12. While the Care Provider’s response is robust, it appears to have been carried out adequately after interviewing carers in some detail. We are unlikely to add to this.
13. I should add that I have not listed all of Miss Y’s complaint elements in this decision statement. I do not consider I need to do so to decide her complaint.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Miss Y’s complaint because we are unlikely to add to the investigation already carried out.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman