Ombudsman Slams Care System Failure

The first homecare workers will be added to social care’s expanding professional register early next year. A good thing, most people agree, but there will be concerns about workers being scapegoated for failings in what is an underfunded and often poorly-managed service.

In a report today, the local government ombudsman, Anne Seex, censures Sheffield council over events leading to the death of a 94-year-old woman, Maria Stones, who was “failed by the system which was supposed to protect her”.

And as Seex points out, the report is the third in 12 months in which she has criticised a council’s handling of agencies providing homecare under contract and the second to have followed the death of an older person.

Last March, Society Guardian carried detailed coverage of Seex’s harrowing report on the breakdown of care services for Joan Irish, a profoundly disabled retired businesswoman who died after falling while apparently trying to reach her fridge to get something to eat or drink. Care workers employed by an agency contracted by Blackpool council had failed to turn up for either of two booked calls that day, and the ombudsman uncovered a catalogue of complaints about the agency.

Last month, Seex turned her fire on Liverpool council for failing to ensure improvements in homecare provided by a contracted agency to a disabled man, whose needs were deemed “critical”, when the council knew the service to be deficient.

Today’s report finds that Stones fell across a coffee table, breaking eight ribs, as she struggled to open the door to a care worker. The worker, Nicola Norton, did not report the incident and Stones died a fortnight later following misdiagnosis by a doctor. At an inquest, the coroner said he did not believe Norton’s evidence that Stones had shown no signs of pain. Norton was dismissed by her agency, Sheffcare, which subsequently surrendered its contract. Under the coming regulatory system, she would risk being struck off.

But Seex says Sheffield council’s failure to monitor adequately its care agencies’ performance or take action on problems – issues the council insists it has since addressed – caused unnecessary suffering and distress for Stones, “and possibly for many others”.