December 2021 – Ombudsman Recommends New Investigative Powers
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has called for new proactive investigation powers to enable it to look into issues on behalf of people who are unable to complain about their care themselves.
A recent review includes recommendations to strengthen its voice in adult social care and focus work on improving complaints handling across the board.
In relation to work with social care providers, recommendations include
Giving the service the power to investigate bodies within its jurisdiction based on evidence gained through casework without the need for a specific individual
Requiring all adult social care providers and commissioners to produce and make publicly available an annual review of complaints that would enable patterns of complaint to be identified and information on how complaints are dealt with and the outcomes achieved to be easily accessible.
Extending its jurisdiction to cover all care service provision and not just the actions of providers directly registered with the Care Quality Commission as currently.
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Michael King said the legislation governing the role of the Ombudsman needed to be brought up to date since the office was increasingly seeing new models of local government that sits outside of their current jurisdiction and people are raising legitimate complaints that cannot be considered.
Font size 
Copyright 2012 Latitude Consortium Ltd.
About our Cookies