Summary: We do not find fault with the Council in how it applied Ms X’s daughter’s bandage and there is no evidence it falsified advice provided by a doctor. We have not investigated Ms X’s complaint regarding her daughter’s weight gain as there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the provision of work/training support. This is because the actions complained about do not relate to the provision of adult social care.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the quality of care in a residential home. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. The Care Provider has closed down and the Council has no record of any complaint being made to it. We are therefore unable to carry out a meaningful investigation or achieve the complainant’s desired outcome.

Summary: We will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about the Council’s decision on a deprivation of assets for adult social care funding. It is unlikely we would find fault or add to the Council’s own investigation.

Summary: We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint about the Council charging his late mother, Mrs C, for care he believed would be free of charge. This is because further investigation could not add to the Council’s response or make a different finding of the kind Mr B wants.

Summary: Mrs Y complains on behalf of her daughter, Miss Z, about the Council’s failure to ensure a timely transition when the provider of Miss Z’s residential setting terminated her placement. Mrs Y also complains about the Council’s failure to communicate and consult with her at key times. In our provisional view, we find significant delay by the Council caused injustice to Mrs Y and Miss Z which the Council should remedy with payments of £600 and £300 respectively.

Summary: Mr A complains about poor care provided by Mrs X’s care provider. He says the carer left her when she was in a diabetic coma and did not contact the family to let them know she was will. He also complains the care provider failed to contact the family when Mrs X continued to refuse support with personal care. We find no fault.

Summary: Ms B says the Council does not provide enough money to meet Mr C’s adult social care needs. The Council has acted correctly to assess care and support needs and provide a personal budget for live in care. The Council gives Mr C the money as direct payments. Mr C chooses to use his budget to employ personal assistants rather than a live in carer, which is more costly and means his budget does not stretch as far. This is his choice and is not fault of the Council.

Summary: There was no fault in the Care Home’s actions in relation to falls experienced by Mr and Mrs P or the information in their care plans about their mobility. However, the Care Home was at fault when it failed to update Mr and Mrs P’s next of kin, Mr X, about these and other incidents. Although Mr X was not caused a significant injustice, the Council should make service improvements to prevent a reoccurrence. There was no fault in how the Council decided to take the value of the Mr and Mrs P’s property into account when deciding what they could afford to pay for their care.

Summary: The Council responded appropriately to Mrs X’s requests for assistance for her daughter Ms X. It is up to Mrs X to allow the Council to complete its assessments before it can provide any other necessary services.

Summary: The Council gave wrong advice to Mr X about the debt owed by the late Mrs A for her residential care, and as a result he acted to his detriment in distributing her estate. The Council is now seeking to recover the debt through the Courts and the substantive matter is therefore for the Court to decide; however, the Council acknowledges that its error led to injustice to Mr X and will make a suitable payment to recognise the distress caused and the time and trouble he has been put to in pursuing the complaint.

Summary: Ms D complained the care provider increased the charges for her mother’s care without following the process set down in the contract. And that the increase was not justified. She said that as a result Ms X was charged too much and was threatened with eviction when they did not pay the increased charge. She also complained about how the care provider dealt with a request for continuing healthcare (CHC) funding and responded to the complaint correspondence. There was fault by the care provider which caused injustice for which it will apologise.

Summary: Miss X complains the Council’s blanket ban on care home residents visiting people outside a care home when there were cases of COVID-19 in the care home prevented her father from visiting her on a number of occasions since September 2021. Based on the evidence seen so far, the Council was at fault for failing to acknowledge Government guidance was open to interpretation and it had chosen to interpret in a particular way. However, this did not cause injustice to Miss X or her father, as they knew there was no legal power to stop him from leaving the care home.

Summary: Miss X complains about the actions of the care provider while her grandmother was at a care home. She complains the care provider failed to provide appropriate care, failed to properly assess, failed to communicate effectively with the family, failed to follow COVID-19 protocols, and failed to give four weeks notice to end the placement. We find fault with poor record keeping. We have made some recommendations for the Council to remedy the injustice caused. We also find some fault with the actions of the care home. However, these faults did not cause significant injustice, or have already been appropriately remedied by the Council.

Summary: Ms D complained about the standard of care given to her mother, Ms X, by the care provider while Ms X lived in Field House Residential Care Home. She also complained that Ms X’s belongings went missing. She said that as a result Ms X will have suffered distress and will have not had the quality of life she should. There was fault and to remedy the injustice caused the care provider should make a payment to Ms D.

Summary: Miss X complains about the care her grandmother, Mrs Y, received at Greenacres Care Centre, where the Council placed her for respite care. The Council accepts there were examples of poor care and poor communication with Mrs Y’s family. It needs to apologise to her family and make a symbolic payment to Mrs Y for the avoidable distress caused to her.

Summary: Ms B complained on behalf of her mother, Mrs X, that the Council failed to send deferred payment agreement forms after she moved into residential care and failed to advise her that she could claim Attendance Allowance. We found the Council delayed in sending the deferred payment agreement form to Mrs X and failed to arrange an appointment to discuss the scheme in more detail after her placement became permanent. However, it has provided a suitable remedy for the injustice caused.

Summary: We will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about money she says the Council owes her late mother’s, Mrs D’s, estate. This is because the Council has now considered the complaint and reimbursed Mrs D’s estate with monies owed. The injustice caused by the fault has now been remedied.

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint about the care provided to her late grandmother, Mrs X. That is because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, and we cannot achieve the outcome Mrs Y wants.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s supervision of grant aided disabled facilities at Mr X’s home. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

Summary: Mrs X complained about the way the Council dealt with a major adaptation and disabled facilities grant. She said it bullied her into having an extension she did not want, and she could not use the shower or heating for three years. She says this caused her great heartache and pain and spoiled her husband’s plans to die in the room they had built. We find the Council caused Mrs X inconvenience and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to apologise, pay Mrs X £500, and take action to put right the outstanding issues including consulting with an independent heating engineer and an independent occupational therapist. It will also take action to prevent similar problems in future.

Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the lack of support from Social Care services after the complainant’s relative was discharged from hospital. This is because the complainant’s care was in the context of mental health care which comes under the jurisdiction of the NHS not the Council. We have no powers to investigate complaints solely about NHS matters.

Summary: Ms X complains about a lack of care and support provided to her late sister, Ms Y. Ms X says this enabled Ms Y to ingest items she should not have had access to, and that a serious incident report did not answer some of her questions about what happened. We found that Ms X’s questions about Ms Y’s medication could have been answered in more detail, and that not doing so prolonged Ms X’s distress. Livewell Southwest has agreed to apologise to Ms X for this. Livewell Southwest and the Council have taken reasonable steps to remedy the other failings they have already identified.

Summary: Mrs X complains the care provider agreed to care for her and then terminated her care without clear rationale, leaving her and her family in distress. The Ombudsman finds no fault with the care provider for how it assessed Mrs X’s care needs and made the decision to end her care. The Ombudsman finds fault with the care provider for its complaint handling. The care provider has agreed a service remedy.

Summary: Mr X complains the Council has failed to make reasonable adjustments when communicating with him, resulting in avoidable distress and unnecessary time and trouble in pursuing his concerns. The Council has accepted its failings and has taken steps to ensure Mr X receives the service he needs in future. The Council needs to apologise, pay further financial redress and take action to ensure officers understand their duties under the Equality Act 2010.

Summary: Ms C complains the Council wrongly pursued arrears for home care charges and reneged on an agreement to fund residential care. The Council was at fault for charging for home support services without a financial assessment, delayed in completing a financial assessment and failed to consider community based alternatives for Mr D earlier. To remedy the complaint the Council has agreed to waive some home support charges, pay Ms C £300 in acknowledgement of the time, trouble and stress the Council’s faults have caused her. It will also review procedures and remind staff about the importance of completing financial assessments as early as possible.

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council gave incorrect advice and incorrectly assessed her father’s contribution towards care charges, causing distress and financial loss. We found the Council gave incorrect advice but we found no fault in its decision making on care charges. We recommended the Council pay Mrs X £300 for distress and act to prevent recurrence.

Summary: Mr X complained a social worker visited his mother in her home without warning in response to a safeguarding concern raised by a domiciliary care worker. The Council was not at fault.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the quality of care at a care home. This is because the Care Provider acting on behalf of the Council agreed to take action we recommended to remedy the injustice to Mrs X.

Summary: We will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about her former Care Provider’s charging policy. This is because the Care Provider has apologised for invoicing Ms B, credited her account, and confirmed it did not take any payments. The Care Provider’s actions have not caused a significant enough injustice to warrant an Ombudsman investigation.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council assessed Ms X’s personal expenses allowance. That is because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint about the Council’s actions regarding her husband’s, Mr B’s, care. This is because it is unlikely we would add to the Council’s response or make a different finding.

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about her mother Mrs Y’s former care home. There is not enough evidence that it was actions or inactions by the home which led to Mrs Y’s placement ending to justify investigating. There is not enough evidence of significant injustice caused to Mrs X or Mrs Y to warrant an investigation. There is no different worthwhile outcome an investigation would achieve for Mrs X or Mrs Y.

Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint about the Council’s decision to reduce the support provided to Mr X through a care plan. Mr X could have complained to us sooner.