Summary: Mrs X complained about her late mother’s (Mrs Y’s) care on the day she died. Surrey County Council (the Council) arranged and funded Mrs Y’s care in Puttenham Hill Care Home (the Care Home). Mrs X complained the care home: delayed in calling emergency services; did not have appropriate staff; and did not protect Mrs Y’s dignity when she was dying, provide appropriate care or communicate with the family adequately. Mrs X says this caused her avoidable distress. She found her mother’s body unexpectedly, causing her significant shock at the time and alarm that such a situation could have occurred.

Summary: Miss B complains the Council has not completed adaptions to her home. She says the lack of adaptions has a significant impact on her quality of life. Miss B says the Council delayed in agreeing an adaption plan, has declined to provide additional funding and did not properly respond to her complaint. The Ombudsman finds fault in how the Council investigated this matter at stage two of its complaint procedure.

Summary: Mrs F complains the Council issued late invoices for her husband’s care and did not take into account his disability related expenses. The invoices were late and the Council failed to reply to one of Mrs F’s complaints. We have found no fault in the Council’s calculations. The Council has agreed to apologise and reduce the amount owed by £100 to acknowledge the time and trouble caused. Mrs F should continue with the repayment plan.

Summary: Mrs X complained about the actions of Heathbrock Limited Care Provider who provided respite care for her husband. The Care Provider was at fault when it failed to provide Mrs X with written confirmation of additional costs associated with providing her husband with one to one care. The Care Provider has agreed to make procedural changes to prevent a reoccurrence.

Summary: The Council’s failure to keep accurate records delayed provision of a level access shower to a vulnerable adult for over a year. This is fault. The Council should apologise, make financial payments, and take action to improve its service.

Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint. Further investigation is unlikely to provide Ms B with a different outcome to that already provided by the Council. Any injustice caused to her late father, Mr C, from the actions of the Council cannot be remedied now, so there is no good reason to disapply the law in this case.

Summary: We cannot investigate Ms B’s complaint about the actions of the care provider. This is because we do not have jurisdiction to consider her complaint.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to renew the complainant’s Blue Badge. This is because the Council has offered to do a further assessment and there is nothing more we could achieve.

Summary: the complainant complained the Council’s commissioned Care Provider, Comfort Call (Durham) failed to provide services it had commissioned leading to his mother not receiving all the care she needed, putting her at risk of harm and causing distress to the family. The Council says Comfort Call accepted fault and committed to improvements but that any further remedy was unnecessary. We find the Council at fault for the poor care service and it has agreed to apologise, pay £500 to the complainant, and monitor the contractor’s future performance.

Summary: The Council has proposed an adequate resolution to a complaint about invoicing for care fees, and as further investigation would not provide a different outcome, we have discontinued our investigation of this point. There is no evidence of fault in the Council’s decision to refer the complainant’s arrears to a debt collection agency.

Summary: Mr and Mrs X complain the Council hasn’t dealt properly with a financial assessment for Mrs Y. The Council is not at fault.

Summary: Mr H complains the care provider has delayed repaying overpaid care home fees. He is the executor of his uncle’s estate and has been trying to resolve the issue for many months. The Ombudsman’s view is the care provider did delay responding to Mr H. Although this delay was not the reason for the confusion about how much they owe, it was avoidable. It led to unnecessary time and trouble and frustration for Mr H. The care provider has agreed to apologise.

Summary: Mrs B complained about how the Council dealt with allegations of financial abuse by a carer employed by an agency providing homecare on its behalf, and about how the Council dealt with the complaint about that. We have found there was fault by the Council in these matters and that as a result Mrs B was caused unnecessary distress and time and trouble seeking to have matters resolved. The Council has agreed to take appropriate action to remedy this injustice.

Summary: The Council has correctly completed financial assessments of what Ms B should pay towards her adult social care support. The reason it concludes Ms B must now pay is because her Disability Related Expenditure has reduced, which means there is surplus income she can put towards her care costs. This can be reviewed if Ms B provides evidence to the Council of her Disability Related Expenditure.

Summary: Mr H complains the Council gave him incorrect information about how it was dealing with payments to his uncle’s care provider. We uphold the complaint. Our view is the Council did give confusing advice and did not respond to Mr H’s contacts seeking to resolve the issue. The Council has agreed to our suggested remedy.

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a Council officer being rude to her during a telephone call. This is because it is unlikely an investigation would be able to add to the response already provided via the Council’s investigation.

Summary: A CAB adviser complained on behalf of Ms X that the Council failed to properly manage her finances after becoming an appointee. She says this mismanagement resulted in employment support allowance and housing benefit overpayments of more than £12,000. The Council failed to notify the Department for Work and Pensions of changes to Ms X’s circumstances and failed to spend the benefit in Ms X’s best interests which were its duties as appointee. The overpayments of benefits would not have occurred if the Council had acted correctly as appointee.

Summary: Mrs B complained about the care provided to her late husband at Sunrise of Hale Barns care home. She also complained about the charges which she says increased from the figure she was first given. She considered the poor care hastened Mr B’s decline and death. There was some fault which caused injustice to Mr B and Mrs B for which the care provider will apologise.

Summary: Mr C complained about the Council’s decision to include the value of his mother’s share of the family home when assessing his mother’s contribution to her residential care home fees. Mr C says he could lose his home when the charge on the property under the Council’s deferred repayment scheme has to be repaid and this has caused him and his family unnecessary distress and anxiety. We have found no fault by the Council.

Summary: Mr B complained that the Council treated him with prejudice and discrimination by telling the parents of young people he had been working with that they could no longer use direct payments to continue employing him because of a spent conviction. We have found no fault in the way the Council dealt with the matter.

Summary: We shall not investigate Mr X’s complaint about matters related to the care of a relative with disabilities. This is because the alleged fault did not cause significant enough injustice on one part of the complaint. Another point is late and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to investigate it.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about what happened during a mental health assessment for the complainant. This is because we cannot add anything to the Council’s investigation of the complaint or change the outcome.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about liability for expenses that the complainant says were caused by the actions of the Care Provider supporting his wife at their home. This is because the complainant has a remedy in court and it is reasonable to expect him to use it.

Summary: The Council was not at fault for the information it gave to Mr C and his family about social care charging before it wrote his support plan. However, it was at fault for a delay in providing one part of his support, and for failing to provide another. It has agreed to apologise, and to make a payment of £125 to recognise Mr C’s injustice.

Summary: The Council was not at fault for the information it gave Mrs B about potential social care charges before she moved into a care home. It was also not at fault for discussing these charges with Mrs B without her daughter present, as she had capacity to make decisions about her own care. The Council was, however, at fault for a delay in completing Mrs B’s financial assessment. It has already apologised, so no further action is needed.

Summary: Mrs X complains the care home where the Council had placed her brother, Mr Y, failed to take him back when he was ready to leave hospital at the end of March 2020, resulting in him spending too long in hospital, catching COVID-19, and spending time in another care home before moving to alternative permanent accommodation. The council and the care home should not have allowed Mr Y to become the victim of a dispute between them over the cost of meeting his needs, which prevented him from leaving hospital when he was ready to do so. That was an injustice which requires a remedy.

Summary: Mrs C complains the Council has asked her to pay an outstanding bill to an estate she is not the executor of. We uphold the complaint. The Council has agreed to provide a letter of apology. That, and its offer to reissue the bill to the executor, is a suitable remedy.

Summary: Mr X complains that the Council delayed in requesting a financial assessment in respect of Mrs Y’s contribution towards the cost of her care. We have found the Council to be at fault. To remedy the injustice this has caused the Council has agreed to apologise, reduce the charges for care and review its practices.

Summary: Mr B complained on behalf of Mr G that the Care Provider charged Mr G’s late mother, Mrs D, excessive fees for her domiciliary care. Mr B said the Care Provider entered into an unsigned contract with Mrs D and it did not make her aware of the terms and conditions of the contract including the cancellation provisions. Mr B also complained about how the Care Provider had pursued Mrs D’s care fees payment with Mr G which caused him distress. There was no evidence injustice was caused to Mr G by the actions of the Care Provider.

Summary: There was a delay completing Mr Y’s financial assessment for home care. This was fault causing avoidable distress and a large and unexpected first invoice. To remedy the injustice, the Council will reduce the invoice by £100 and agree an affordable repayment plan with Mr Y.

Summary: The Council was at fault for not consistently applying some items of Disability Related Expenditure to Ms Y’s care costs, meaning her care costs were higher than they should have been. The Council has provided a suitable remedy to the injustice caused to Ms Y. The Council was at fault for not properly explaining why certain items were not considered Disability Related Expenditure. The Council has agreed to remedy the injustice caused.

Summary: There was fault by the Council. It took too long to deal with Mr B’s correspondence about his father’s contribution to charge for his home care. The Council also was not clear that it was assessing or reviewing Mrs B’s needs as carer and there is no evidence it took her views into account. The Council has apologised for not responding to Mr B in good time. It should also review its assessment of Mrs B’s needs as carer.

Summary: We shall not investigate this complaint that a carer allegedly gave Mrs Y COVID-19. It is unlikely we would be able to reach a clear enough view about the events.

Summary: Ms A has complained about a care home and GP regarding their response to a fall her mother suffered in March 2020. The care home has already apologised for its delay in communicating with the family and there is nothing more we could achieve. We will not investigate this case as we are unlikely to find any further fault or add to the previous investigation by the care provider.

Summary: We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint, made on behalf of Mr X, about visiting arrangements in a care home during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault causing significant personal injustice. It is also unlikely we could add anything to the response Mr X has already received, and we will not investigate concerns about complaint handling as a standalone issue.