Council ordered to pay fine over care delay ‘injustice’

A WEST London council has been fined after a pensioner’s daughter was forced to pay for her mother’s care for a month following delays in figuring out how much care she needed.

Hillingdon Council was fined £300 by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for failing to act quickly enough to provide the pensioner with adequate care.

According to the Ombudsman’s report, the woman, identified only as Mrs A, was receiving four and a half hours of support a week until December 2020, when the council agreed to increase her care by another four hours.

The report states that in February 2021, a doctor told Mrs A that she had a health condition that meant she could pass away at any time.

At the end of February, her daughter, identified in the report as Ms X, asked Hillingdon Council to review her mother’s care needs and provide a live-in carer.

By the middle of March, the council had still not reviewed the pensioner’s needs and her daughter told them she was paying for a night carer herself because her mother was at risk if left alone.

The report stated that the council only reviewed Mrs A’s needs on March 23 2021 where they found she needed round-theclock care.

The council said that they would look to move Mrs A to a care home, but that in the meantime funding would be provided for a carer to look after her in her own home.

The Ombudsman found that the council delayed by approximately a month in assessing Mrs A’s needs and that had this happened sooner, she would have received round-the-clock care quicker.

As a result, her daughter would also have avoided paying for her mother’s night care out of her own pocket in March.

Branding the experience of Mrs A and her daughter an “injustice”, the Ombudsman said: “This is because we consider it is likely, on balance, the Council would have assessed Mrs A as needing 24 hour care if it had assessed her at the beginning of March 2021.

“This is supported by the fact the Council had assessed Mrs A as needing 24 hour care in its 23 March assessment and there is no evidence to suggest Mrs A’s needs or circumstances were different.”

Hillingdon Council have been approached for comment.