Complaints about adult social care have more than doubled in the last five years, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has revealed.
The ombudsman has seen a 130% increase in complaints about private social care providers and local authorities since 2009, the first ever published statistics on the subject have shown.
Some 2,456 complaints and enquiries were received by the LGO in 2013, a 14% increase on the previous year.
Data also reveals 40% of the total complaints received by the ombudsman relate to 25 council areas.
The figures were welcomed by the consumer body for health and social care, Healthwatch England, which said the increasing number of complaints showed ‘more people feel able to make their voices heard’.
However, the Local Government Association warned that basing statistics on the number of complaints regardless of how they were handled ‘risks seriously misrepresenting what is accurately happening on the ground in local councils’.
‘Huge efforts have been made by councils to ensure people in care have their voices heard. Local government is one of the most trusted parts of the public sector and a rise in complaints can be an indication that local authorities are making it easier for those in care to give feedback, and that people are confident that their council will act on it,’ a spokesperson for the LGA said.
Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman, said: ‘Over the last few years there have been a number of reviews that have looked at healthcare complaints. We must not wait for a crisis in adult care to examine more closely the way social care commissioners and providers deal with complaints.
