Council failed to help make terminally-ill Derbyshire woman’s last days more ‘dignified’

A DERBYSHIRE woman with a terminal illness died by the time Derbyshire County Council came forward with plans which could have made her final days more “dignified”, an investigation has found.

This comes as a result of an investigation from council watchdog the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

In an anonymised report, the LGO says that a “Mr X” complained to the watchdog that his late wife’s, “Mrs X”, last months “were unnecessarily painful and undignified” as a result of failures from Derbyshire County Council.

The watchdog has told the council to apologise to “Mr X” and pay him £250 for the “injustice” caused, causing the husband to “live with the uncertainty” that his wife of 42 years may have been helped to die with more dignity.

In a case report, the watchdog says “Mr X” contacted the council in August last year asking for the council to assess his wife to see if there were any adaptations that could be made to their Bolsover district home which would make their lives easier – such as a stairlift.

The report says, at the time, “Mrs X” had been sleeping in the couple’s living room because she could no longer safely manage walking up and down the stairs, with her husband providing her care, the report says.

The council responded to “Mr X” to say it would be at least 18 months before any works could be done to the home, with the watchdog noting “’Mrs X’ was not likely to live that long”.

In October 2020, the council contacted “Mr X” to arrange a date to assess his wife, but “by this time, ‘Mrs X’ had died” - six weeks after “Mr X” had contacted the authority.

The council apologised and said there had been a backlog caused by Covid-19 along with wider issues with occupational therapist staffing, which was part of a national shortage.

It told the watchdog: “This is a national problem, not unique to this council, and has led to the government listing occupational therapy as a ‘shortage occupation.’” The council said that in

January 2020, before the pandemic, there was a backlog of 178 requests for home assessments by authority occupational therapists in Bolsover district alone, with the oldest request stretching back nine months.

By August 2020, it said, in the midst of the pandemic, this had surged to 293 outstanding requests in the Bolsover area with the oldest stemming back 15 months.

It says that, at that time, the average waiting time for an assessment was 143 days - nearly five months.

The authority had told the ombudsman that it was recruiting staff to target the longest wait times and was hiring four new occupational therapists.

It said it wanted to “emphasise our ongoing commitment to address the backlog and prevent a similar delay being experienced by others”.

The Ombudsman said: “The most significant injustice caused by the council’s delay was to ‘Mrs X.’

“As she is now deceased, this cannot be remedied.

“Even if the council had assessed her sooner, it is very unlikely it would have been able to install a stairlift before she died.

“However, it might have been able to provide other aids to help ‘Mr X’ care for his wife of 42 years with as much dignity as possible in her last days.

“’Mr X’ must live with this uncertainty.”

A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: “We’d like to apologise to the family involved in this case that we were not able to make an assessment before the sad death of their loved one.

“There has been a national shortage of occupational therapists for some time, and councils have to compete with the health service who are major employers of the profession.

“We are doing all we can to recruit more OTS, with two recent recruitment drives and we’re about to advertise again to fill some vacant positions.”

The council says it currently has one permanent part-time vacancy and two temporary full-time vacancies in the department.

One waiting list, in the Bolsover district, now stands at 277 people, with the longest wait being 10 months.

As she is now deceased, this injustice cannot be remedied

Social Care Ombudsman