Council caused injustice of scale "difficult to express or quantify": LGO

The Local Government Ombudsman has accused Leeds City Council of causing a woman injustice of a nature and scale that is “difficult to express or quantify”, after the authority wrongly prevented her from seeing her dying mother in a care home.

The decision meant Ms B, the complainant, was unable to speak to her mother before the latter’s death.

The background to the case was that Ms B had been estranged from her family. Shortly before Christmas in 2008, she had found out that her mother was in a home and was unlikely to live much longer.

The placement in the nursing home had been arranged and was managed by a Joint Care Management Team staffed by social and healthcare professionals from the city council and Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.

But Ms B’s brother wrote to the care home claiming that she would try to remove their mother from the home and would upset her by talking about money. The care home providers passed the information on to council officers and told Ms B that she would not be allowed to visit her mother.

An officer from the joint management team asked the brother a couple of days later to provide more detail on his allegations. He withdrew the allegations but expressed concern that a visit from Ms B would upset their mother.

A manager said the officer concerned was told that Ms B could not be prevented from seeing her mother. However, they were also told that, because of the concern that the mother (Mrs B) might be distressed, staff should assess Mrs B’s capacity to decide whether or not to see her daughter.

What then happened was that the home continued to tell Ms B that she could not visit her mother. The complainant was forced to stand outside the home and hand a Christmas gift for her mother to staff.

The officer also arranged for a specialist to assess Mrs B's capacity, but this took a month. Ms B was prevented from seeing her mother during this time, even though there was no legal power to stop her from visiting.

Unfortunately by the time that the assessment had been completed and Ms B could pay a visit, the mother had had a stroke. This meant she was unable to recognise or communicate with Ms B. The mother died the next day.

The Ombudsman found Leeds guilty of maladministration in preventing Ms B from seeing her mother for more than a month, and for failing to review the situation after any of the nine contacts she made.

The LGO, Anne Seex, said: “Relatives and friends have the right to visit and see each other without undue interference and the right to respect for family life is enshrined in law. Ms B was told unexpectedly – and without there being any evidence – that she was regarded as a threat to her own mother, denied access to her, made to hand over a Christmas gift outside the home and made to wait for over a month for the council’s processes before finally being told that she could see her mother.”

The city council and the NHS trust have accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendations, which included making a full written apology to Ms B and paying for a bench with an inscribed plaque in a location of Ms B’s choice.

The council has also agreed to help the complainant find out where her mother was buried or cremated, and pay her £5,000 in recognition of the distress caused to her.

The LGO acknowledged that the joint service had delivered comprehensive staff training since the complaint was made.

In a statement both Leeds City Council and Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust said they deeply regretted the distress caused to Ms B.

Both organisations insisted that they had acted swiftly to take action to address the issues raised by the case, where practice failed and led to the chain of events described in the Ombudsman’s report.

Sandie Keene, director of adult social services at Leeds, said: “The Ombudsman’s report describes a standard that, on this occasion, fell well below what the council expects when dealing with such a sensitive situation. On behalf of Leeds City Council, I extend deepest apologies for the distress Ms B has experienced.

“Immediately after the events, we commissioned an independent review of our safeguarding practice. This discovered that this was an isolated series of errors and misjudgements, which I am relieved to say was not the result of fundamentally flawed policy within our joint care services.

“We have learned a number of important lessons in communication, training and management. Together with colleagues in the Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, we will continue to ensure that these lessons are used to strengthen the quality of our services.”

Rob Webster, chief executive of the Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, said it accepted the findings in the LGO’s report and its recommendations in full.

He said: “I am reassured that the Ombudsman recognises that we acted quickly to make improvements and deal with the issues raised. Cases like this are a reminder that we must work tirelessly to ensure we provide the highest quality care.

“We are committed to working jointly with our colleagues in Leeds City Council to improve the delivery of health and social care for families across the city.”