Indications of serious service failure

Nigel Ellis Executive Director, Local Government Ombudsman

The Ombudsman’s experience

• We investigate complaints about councils and independent social care providers

• Free, impartial and final

• If we find something wrong, we recommend action to put it right

• 12,000 complaints looked into last year

• Skewed towards failure

The complainant’s experience

The complainant’s experience

Last year our investigators handled 1,846 complaints about social care

This is the fastest growing area of our work

13.8% increase since

2012

Review of adult social care

complaints 2013

“The council had not considered the risk to George of reducing his care package … it did not have regard to the importance of his dignity and privacy when relying on carers to carry out intimate tasks”

“Care home workers failed to call an ambulance for a vulnerable elderly stroke victim for more than five hours … both the home’s manager and a deputy were aware of Margaret’s situation, but both thought the other had called for assistance. ”

What can we piece together from these individual stories …

And what does it tell us about quality?

Are the lessons from service failure really so hard to see?

They highlight my areas

of greatest risk …

… and tell me what

my users care about.

• Care providers are often unable to resolve complaints at the first attempt – why?

• Given how hard it can be to complain, do we really hear the views of the most vulnerable service users?

Two key questions