SPSO Individual Decisions

C, a support and advocacy worker, complained on behalf of their client (A) regarding the partnership's decision not to backdate kinship care allowance. The partnership confirmed that they had reviewed matters in light of new Scottish Government guidance and would be willing to apologise to A and calculate the allowance due. C confirmed that this would resolve the complaint and we closed our investigation. Related reading View Decision Report 202307268 as a PDF (23.94 KB) Updated: July 24, 2024

C complained about the care and treatment their parent (A) received from the partnership. A was referred to the partnership’s Rapid Early Assessment Care Team (REACT) for Hospital at Home care due to shortness of breath upon exertion. A’s condition did not improve with treatment and they subsequently developed sepsis (a life-threatening reaction to an infection) and died. C considered that A should have been admitted to hospital for treatment, rather than being expected to continue with oral antibiotics which were making no improvements to their condition. We took independent advice from a consultant geriatrician (a specialist in medicine of the elderly). We found that the initial care provided by the REACT team was of a reasonable standard. However, we could not find clear evidence to support the decision to continue antibiotic treatment, which did not appear to be improving A’s condition, without trying other options. We were critical of the decision to discharge A from the Hospital at Home service without a full medical review and treatment of their ongoing treatable symptoms. It was not clear whether these failings contributed to the deterioration in A’s condition, but we found that clearer decision making and closer attention to A’s treatable symptoms may have provided their family with some reassurance as to the standard of care they were receiving. Taking all of this into account, we upheld this part of C’s complaint. C also complained about the communication between the REACT team and A’s GP practice. We did not consider there to be a systemic issue. However, as accepted by the partnership, there had been a clear delay in issuing the discharge letter after A’s discharge from the Hospital at Home service. We found that if A had lived, there could have been significant implications for their ongoing care due to the request for monitoring and bloods not reaching the GP within the requested timescale. With this delay in mind, we upheld this part of C

C complained about the standard of support provided by the partnership following their adoption of their child. C lived in another partnership area and told us that there had been disagreements between their local social work team and West Lothian which had not been appropriately resolved. They also had concerns in a number of other areas, including a general lack of contact and a failure to provide appropriate support following a disclosure of past abuse by their child. We took independent advice from a social work adviser. We found that the partnership had not provided a reasonable standard of support. We found that there were failures in the resolution of the disagreements between the partnerships and the support provided following the disclosure of abuse. In addition, we considered that many of the partnership's actions had not been sufficiently recorded and that they failed to handle C's subsequent complaints in an appropriately empathetic manner, given the sensitivity of the issues involved. For these reasons, we upheld C's complaints.