Councillor Chris Jones introduced a report which informed the Cabinet that the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) had investigated a complaint about the Council and found the Council to be at fault. The Cabinet noted that the LGO had made a number of recommendations which the Council had accepted in full. The LGO had made the decision that the report would be published. As well as being considered by the Cabinet the report had also been deliberated by the Standards and Constitutional Oversight Committee at its meeting on 11 June 2019.

The report set out the actions that had been taken, or would be taken, to avoid similar faults in future and to meet the recommendations of the report in full which have been accepted. The findings and recommendations were specific to the case that had been investigated.

The Cabinet noted that the report related to two of the Wirral Plan pledges: older people live well, and people with disabilities live independently.

The decision was not a key decision. The findings did relate to all wards as some responses to the LGO’s recommendations would apply to all wards.

The LGO’s report referred to Mr X as the son of the former service user, and for ease of reference the same approach had been taken in the Cabinet report.

Councillor Jones apologised for the unfortunate mistakes that had been made by the Council’s Adult Social Care Teams in providing care for a resident and the problems the family had to deal with as a result.  She informed that mistakes were not made often but when they were made they had to be put right quickly and this had been done. Also, it was important to make sure mistakes like these ones did not happen again.

Councillor Jones reassured the Cabinet and residents of the Borough that the issues the family had faced had been rectified, the systems involved had been improved and appropriate staff training had been provided.  Councillor Jones also informed the Cabinet that the Council’s Social Care Teams consisted of dedicated and extremely talented officers. They worked very hard, often in very difficult circumstances, to help people in difficult and complex situations and Councillor Jones thanked them for this.

Councillor Jones reported that Adult Social Care had recently recommissioned the domiciliary care and trusted assessor reviews and support packages were being kept under regular review and modified in accordance with changing needs. 

RESOLVED:

That Members note the report and actions that have been or will be taken, in response to the Local Government Ombudsman’s recommendations.