NORTH Ayrshire Council's health and social care partnership (HSCP) has been ordered to apologise for breaking the code of practice over the treatment of an elderly resident.

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) rapped the local authority team's handling of the case of a visually impaired and partially deaf resident, following a complaint.

The complaint was made by a child of the resident, who said that the social care partnership had not adhered to the code of practice when setting up an Adult Support and Protection (ASP) conference.

The elderly resident had been referred to ASP by their social worker.

But the case conference was held without the resident and their family - because their invitations were not received until after the meeting date.

The complainer believed that the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 Code of Practice had not been reasonably adhered to in relation to actions around the resident's care.

(Image: NAHSCP)

In the report, the SPSO said: "We found that elements of the partnership’s record keeping, provision of information, advice and support to A (the resident) and their family regarding the ASP conference were unreasonable.

"We also found that the partnership had not reasonably considered aspects of the format of the conference and had not reasonably provided a written care package.

"The effect of this was that A’s voice was not heard in the conference.

"Given the close connection between this and the contents of the Code of Practice, we upheld this aspect of the complaint."

They also found that the partnership had not directly addressed concerns that the social work assurances had been accepted without evidence or verification.

The report added: "We also found that the partnership did not indicate that they had taken, or intended to take, any action to address the areas for improvement that they had identified."

They recommended that the HSCP team apologise to the resident and stated that they did not reasonably arrange or conduct the Adult Support and Protection case conference.

The council team were also told to apologise to the family member for not responding reasonably to the complaints and said a written care plan should be provided to them.

A North Ayrshire HSCP spokesperson said: “We are unable to comment on individual circumstances, however, we can provide assurances that we are taking these findings extremely seriously.

“We have accepted the recommendations and actions set by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and are in the process of ensuring that these improvements are embedded in practice. Evidence of this has been submitted to the SPSO.”