Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint that the Council failed to meet Mr Y’s care needs. This is because any fault has caused insufficient injustice to warrant further investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council removed domestic support from Mr Y’s care and support plan, following a care review. She says this led to Mr Y being unable to manage his laundry and the matter has caused her and Mr Y distress. The Council has since reinstated support with laundry, but she wants the Council to compensate them for the distress caused.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide 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

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr Y has a package of care and support commissioned by the Council. The Council reviewed Mr Y’s care and support needs in December 2022.
6. Following the review, it removed support with laundry from Mr Y’s care package. The carers stopped providing this support in February 2023.
7. Shortly afterwards, Mr Y became unwell and was admitted to hospital.
8. Ms X complained to the care provider who said they could only deliver care the Council commissioned. Whilst in hospital, the Council reviewed Mr Y’s care and support and reinstated support with his laundry on discharge.
9. I accept the decision to remove the laundry support may have caused Mr Y and Ms X distress. I also accept that it may have been distressing for Mr Y to be unable to manage his laundry and there was uncertainty about how the situation would be resolved. However, there were 5 days between the carers stopping the laundry support and Mr Y’s admission to hospital. Although likely to have caused some distress, I do not consider the lack of laundry support during this period caused a significant enough injustice to warrant further investigation by us.
10. Although Ms X says the situation contributed to Mr Y’s ill health, we could not reach this conclusion and further investigation would not change this.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because any fault has caused insufficient injustice to warrant further investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman