Kirklees MBC 11 004 229 [2013] MHLO 122 (LGO/PHSO)

Ombudsmen find maladministration in case involving deprivation of liberty.

Summary from LGSCO website

Category: Adult care services > Assessment and care plan

Decision: Upheld

Decision date: 20 Nov 2013

Summary

Complaint from a son that the council and the trust failed to act appropriately in respect of the care of his parents.

The complaint

A report of a joint investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman and the http://www.ombudsman.org.uk">Health Service Ombudsman into a complaint about Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council and South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Complaint from a son that the council and the trust failed to act appropriately in respect of the care of his parents. The son complains in particular about:

the assessment of his father's dementia and the failure to implement the safeguarding process;
the way in which the decision was taken to authorise a Deprivation of Liberty order on his father in the care home, despite the fact that he had arranged for his father to be cared for at home;
the failure to include him in the meeting when the intention to request a Deprivation of Liberty order was discussed;
the way the council and trust handled his complaints;
the failure to carry out a medical assessment of his father, which the son had requested;
the discharge of his father from hospital without raising a safeguarding alert despite evidence that his mother had injured his father (her husband).

Finding and recommendations

The council and trust have fully accepted the findings and recommendations made in the report and agreed to:

properly acknowledge and apologise for the failures in the way they handled concerns about the care and the impact this had on both the parents and the son;
review the way they include carers in assessing and planning for relatives with dementia;
review their joint arrangements for responding to complaints to make sure all aspects of complaints are met in a response;
produce an action plan that describes what they have done to ensure that they have learnt lessons from the failings identified and details what they plan to do, including timescales, to avoid a recurrence of these failings;
pay £1,000 to the parents which reflects the failure to provide a more robust care package for them between April 2009 and September 2009;
pay £500 to the son for the distress and frustration caused by its failure to consult him properly and the poor handling of his complaints.

Additionally, the trust should:

within three months of the date of the final report, review the way patients are reassessed for Aricept in accordance with NICE guidelines. It should produce an action plan which describes what it has done to ensure that it has learnt lessons from the failings identified and details what it plans to do, including timescales, to avoid a recurrence of these failings in the future; and
pay £250 to recognise the distress caused to the mother when the report concerning her future care was sent to her directly.