Ombudsman criticises housing and adult care teams at council over lack of ‘joined-up’ support for vulnerable homeless man

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets left a vulnerable man with significant needs, including disabilities and complex physical and mental health needs, with insufficient support after he told the council he was being made homeless, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.

The Ombudsman’s report found that the council’s housing and adult care services teams did not do enough to support the man over a significant period of time.

The man received a care package from Tower Hamlets, but the Ombudsman said it had found no evidence the adult social care team had liaised with the housing team about this for an extended period during which the man was homeless.

The man spent several weeks sleeping in his car before ending up in hospital due to a lack of coordinated support, large gaps in his care package, and inappropriate interim and temporary housing.

A housing charity found the man and his carer a place to stay overnight after the council had failed to find housing for him on the day of his eviction.

According to the report, the council placed him in accommodation that was unsuitable for a number of reasons – some did not have suitable washing facilities, so his care workers were unable to help him wash properly, or kitchen facilities where he could make his own food.

Additionally, some accommodation was so far away from Tower Hamlets that his care workers were unable to carry on supporting him.

“On one occasion the council did not remind the man that his period in one interim accommodation was coming to an end and needed rebooking. As a result, he had to leave that accommodation on the Friday and no other accommodation was made available until the Monday. That weekend he had to sleep in his car, did not receive any care calls and was unable to take his medication,” the Ombudsman said.

Tower Hamlets has agreed to apologise to the man and pay him a combined £11,728 for the failures identified in the report. It will also liaise with the man about appropriate action to take about other costs the man accrued when he was homeless.

The other steps the council has agreed to are to:

• remind relevant housing staff of the need to consider whether there are others who could reasonably be expected to live with an applicant. If the council decides not to include other people in the applicant’s household, it should write to the applicant with its decision, setting out its reasons;
• remind relevant housing staff that interim and temporary accommodation should be suitable for the applicant and their household, which includes ensuring they can receive care in line with their assessed needs;
• review its process for rebooking interim and temporary accommodation to ensure that it provides appropriate reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants, who would otherwise have difficulty attending its offices for the time required for this;
• remind relevant housing staff of the need to contact the council’s ASC team if an applicant who is receiving a care package is being moved to alternative accommodation and, unless there is a genuinely urgent need to move quickly, to give the ASC team sufficient notice so the care package can be transferred so there is no interruption in care. If there is an urgent need to move the applicant, the council should record the reasons it could not give advance notice to its ASC team;
• share a summary of the learning from this decision, as well as the full report, with relevant officers in its housing and ASC teams to ensure that lessons are learned from what went wrong in this case and consider what steps can be taken to ensure the two teams work more effectively together in future to prevent recurrence of the faults identified; and
• review how it provides services to homeless people with care needs, which is reported to a relevant committee of elected members.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Amerdeep Somal, said:  “This case is an awful example of the dire consequences of council departments not working together properly to support the most vulnerable members of their communities.

“It should have been quite apparent that this would not be a simple case, and the council needed to take action when the man first approached it for help and should have planned ahead for when he had to leave his permanent accommodation.

“However, it only acted after the man had been evicted. Even then the support offered to him simply did not meet his needs, and instead put his welfare at risk.”

Somal added: “When dealing with complex cases like this, councils need to have the channels in place to assure themselves they are meeting their duties to both house and care for disabled people who call on them for assistance.

“I hope the changes I have asked Tower Hamlets Council to make will ensure other homeless people with complex needs get the help and support they are owed.”

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said: “We fully accept the report and its findings, and we apologise to Mr X for the stress and worry we caused him.

“These findings came at a time when we were facing unprecedented demand for housing and homelessness services. This is not an excuse, we can and will do better to provide services to people who are homeless with complex care needs.

“Our team is working hard to improve and already acting on the report’s recommendations.”

Harry Rodd