Bexley Council told to pay compensation to woman with dementia after failings

Council has to pay woman with dementia £350 for care home failings

Bexley Council has paid a woman with dementia £350 after admitting it failed to properly assess her needs and put her in a care home.

The South East London authority was also told to pay £350 to her family to reflect the “distress and uncertainty” caused by the council’s actions. Bexley Council was ordered to apologise to those involved and make the £700 payment by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman after the woman’s granddaughter complained.

The Ombudsman report stated that the woman, known as Mrs Y, has vascular dementia. She lived on her own in sheltered housing and received support from her daughters and her granddaughter, known as Miss X, at the beginning of last year.

Miss X asked Bexley Council to reassess Mrs Y’s needs after she was hospitalised with low blood pressure in January 2025. Miss X explained that Mrs Y’s dementia was “affecting her physical health and she was finding it difficult to cope at home and required significant support from her family”.

Mrs Y returned home and on February 12, the council completed its review of her needs and found “she was eating and drinking less, sleeping a lot, was confused about the date and time and had badly bruised legs”. It was agreed that night care was to be put in place for a few days in response to this.

On February 22, Mrs Y was hospitalised again after she hurt herself using her walking frame. The council assessed her again a month later and found that Mrs Y could not remember where her home was or that she was in hospital.

Miss X explained to the authority that her grandmother’s health and cognition had declined since the start of 2025 and she could not be trusted to move safely on her own. Miss X also explained that Mrs Y was anxious at night and was regularly using her pendant alarm to call her family for reassurance.

Miss X said Mrs Y’s family were spending significant amounts of time caring for her and this was affecting their health. Bexley Council agreed that Mrs Y would receive 45-minute calls, four times per day and it would review her care six weeks after she was discharged from hospital.

Miss X complained to the council after her grandmother was not offered a care home placement following this review.

As part of her complaint, she said that health professionals supporting Mrs Y had questioned why she was not in a care home, the council had not listened to the family’s concerns about her returning home, and carers assessments were not completed for Mrs Y’s family despite the council being aware of the physical and mental stress caused to them by caring for her.

In a pre-discharge meeting from early April before Mrs Y was released from hospital, it was found she needed supervision when moving with a walking frame and was “unstable on her legs and at a high risk of falls”.

Mrs Y also had “no insight into her care and support needs because of her dementia”, she needed prompting to eat and drink, and her doctor felt her needs would best be met in a care home. Because of this, she was moved to a care home and into a discharge-to-assess bed for further assessment.

In June 2025, Bexley Council responded to Miss X’s complaint, apologised to her and her family and admitted it had failed to complete a formal mental capacity assessment for Mrs Y.

Care records show the January assessment of Mrs Y’s needs assumed she had mental capacity but there is no record of how this was considered. The February care review “did not consider evidence and risks identified in a care report” so it was not clear how Mrs Y was managing her care.

The council also admitted it had not completed a mental capacity assessment for Mrs Y until she was moved into the care home, something which meant her needs and risks were not incorporated into her care and support plan as quickly as they could have been.

Miss X was unhappy with Bexley’s response to her complaint and complained to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman found that the council was at fault for delaying Mrs Y’s mental capacity assessment, it did not properly consider Mrs Y’s family concerns about her wellbeing, and it had failed to complete carer assessments for Mrs Y’s family.

The Ombudsman ordered Bexley Council to apologise in writing to Mrs Y and her family and pay £350 to Mrs Y and £350 to her family.

A Bexley Council spokesperson said the authority accepts the findings, has apologised and recognises “the impact this situation had on the individual and their family at a very difficult time”.

They added: “Adult Social Care services operate in a complex and high demand environment, but we are clear that this does not excuse the shortcomings identified in this case. We remain committed to learning from complaints and improving our services to ensure residents receive timely, appropriate, and lawful support.

“We had already begun taking action to address the issues identified by the Ombudsman before they concluded their investigation. This included reinforcing staff training and strengthening our assessment processes.

“We have continued to build on this learning following the report and have put in place further measures to ensure our practice meets the required standards. We have provided the remedy recommended by the Ombudsman and will continue to monitor our practice to ensure improvements are sustained.”

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