• March 28, 2024
 Council Fails To Meet Dementia Patient’s Social Care Needs

Council Fails To Meet Dementia Patient’s Social Care Needs

A Council has been found to be in breach of the Care Act after failing to meet the care needs of a woman who had advanced dementia.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found that Havering Council failed to allocate appropriate care which led to the woman having to cover the shortfall with her own savings.

Havering Council breached the Care Act by setting an arbitrary upper limit for a woman’s live-in care that failed to cover her care to meet her needs.

Even though Havering Council knew that none of the agencies on its provider list met the rate, in November 2018, the Council allocated the woman, suffering with advanced dementia, its standard rate for live-in care – resulting in using her own life savings to cover the shortfall.

Consequently, this meant that the Council was in breach of the requirement under the Care Act as the woman had to use her own personal funds to cover her care needs when it should have been the Council who was required to do so.

The outcome of the breach was a consequence of a number of faults made by the Council which were discovered in the investigation of the case.

Havering has agreed to the ombudsman’s proposals in order to remedy the matter. Those consist of finding out how much the woman paid to cover the shortfall and reimburse in full; review her personal budget, looking at the cost of available care and sending the woman’s daughter an apology and £250 for the failings by the Council.

A recommendation was also agreed to look into historical cases and whether other service users have been impacted by the arbitrary upper limits on care rates and address it as priority, ensuring procedures in the future do not set arbitrary limits on any care provision.

Up to July 2018, the woman self-funded her own care at home. However, her funds eventually fell below the threshold meaning she was eligible for help with care fees. This led to her daughter, who deals with her mother’s finances and documentation, stepping in by liaising with the Council to request an assessment.

A needs assessment followed which was completed in August the same year, revealing that the woman needed help and support in all aspects of her daily life. The assessor said that she was at great risk of wandering off by herself and could not look after her own care needs.

A funding request was submitted in September 2018 by a social worker who visited which allocated three home care visits daily and three days at a day centre.

However, it later transpired that the Council did not communicate the approved funding request to the woman’s daughter or provide the funding for the woman’s care, so personal funds had to be used instead to carry on paying the care provider.

The failings continued at the beginning of October whereby a social worker visited the woman and found she required overnight care and was unaware of her needs. A mental capacity assessment was urgently needed but the Council did not instigate until 16th November, which meant she was left at home by herself and at risk with a decision about the best course of action for care needs had been delayed. The Ombudsman concluded the Council was at fault.

A copy of the assessment did not get passed to the woman’s daughter by the Council until February 2019. And as the Council did not put measures in place for overnight care after the October assessment, the daughter was forced to sort out the matter herself and organise a live-in care service.

An official proper support and care plan did not come about until 16th November 2018, which advised that the woman needed a live-in carer but her daughter was not sent a copy until February 2019.

It was the decision of the Council on 30th November to fund a live-in carer for the woman at a standard rate weekly cost of £854. It was revealed that the Council knew they had no agencies on its provider list that provided live-in care at the council rates, therefore forcing the woman to continually top up her payments and even had to pay £853.16 during May 2019.

The Care Act statutory guidance says the local authority “should not set arbitrary upper limits on the costs it is willing to pay to meet needs through certain routes – doing so would not deliver an approach that is person-centred or compatible with public law principles”.

A Havering council spokesperson said:

“We’re very sorry for the distress that this has caused our resident and her family. Our adult social care team has worked closely with the family to act on the ombudsman’s findings and have remedied our error.

“We’ve worked to identify other residents who may have been affected by historical upper financial limits to ensure their needs are properly met, and in the majority of cases the direct payment package has been appropriate.

“New cases are assessed and care needs are funded according to their need. Current practice already ensures the correct balance between meeting the person’s needs and paying the appropriate amounts for care.”

Toni Ryder-McMullin

Toni is the Media Officer for Today’s Conveyancer, Today’s Wills & Probate and Today's Family Lawyer. I worked for a law firm for 16 years, during my time at the firm I worked as a company commercial legal secretary for 7 years but changed careers and moved into marketing for the remaining 9 years – where I covered all aspects of marketing. While in the marketing role, I achieved a CIM Professional Certificate in Marketing and CAM Diploma in Digital Marketing.