SPSO Individual Decisions

After she was admitted to a private care home, Mr C had concerns about his mother's care and treatment. He complained to the care home and then to the Care Commission (this organisation is now called the Care Inspectorate). The Care Commission responded to six separate complaints from Mr C over an eight-month period. They upheld the majority and made recommendations for improvement. Mr C then complained to us that the Care Commission failed to investigate his concern that his mother was victimised due to her family raising complaints. However, we found no evidence that Mr C had made a complaint about this particular matter at the time. Mr C was also unhappy with the Care Commission's inspection and rating of the care home. He complained to us that, after he continued to question this, the Care Commission incorrectly took action against him under the part of their complaints procedure that deals with 'persistent or vexatious complainants'. Our investigation found that there was no maladministration in the taking of that decision, and we did not uphold the complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201003933 as a PDF (16.82 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

After she was admitted to a private care home, Mr C had concerns about his mother's care and treatment there. He complained to the care home and then to the Care Commission (this organisation is now called the Care Inspectorate). The Care Commission responded to six separate complaints over an eight-month period. They upheld most of them, and made recommendations for improvement. While Mr C awaited the outcome of the last of the six complaints investigated by the Care Commission the care home was the subject of a themed inspection by Care Commission officers (as part of that body's regulatory function). Mr C had taken issue with the Care Commission's previous overall grading of the care home as ‘good’. He believed that this grading should not have been maintained after a more recent inspection and sought to have this investigated as a complaint. However, the Care Commission and then the Care Inspectorate told him that this could not be dealt with through the complaints procedure. When Mr C persisted, the Care Inspectorate told him that they intended to apply to him part of that procedure relating to persistent and vexatious complainants. Mr C then complained to the SPSO that this procedure was incorrectly applied. We did not uphold this, however, as we found that Mr C had inappropriately persisted in pressing the matter as a complaint, despite having had it clearly explained to him that the complaints procedures excluded complaints about the inspection process. Related reading View Decision Report 201101056 as a PDF (17.11 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C alleged that a registered housing support service was operating as an alcohol detox centre. His own organisation offered a detox service, he said, to a high degree of professionalism, whereas the organisation he complained of did not. He said it was being incorrectly marketed. He complained that, when he told the Care Inspectorate about this, they failed to properly investigate his complaint about the organisation and to take appropriate action, including liaising with other bodies. Our investigation found that the registration of a care service is a legal matter and that the Care Inspectorate were obliged to follow appropriate legal guidelines. When considering an application to them for registration as a housing support service, therefore, the Care Inspectorate were under obligation to do only that. A housing support service is legally defined, so where it appeared, after inspection, that a provider met the required definition, the Inspectorate were obliged to confirm the status sought. In these circumstances, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201100662 as a PDF (13.87 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018