There were nearly 400 complaints about adult social care in Hertfordshire last year, a report to councillors revealed.

Adult care social services at Herts County Council received a total of 398 complaints – representing one per cent of service users – between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024.

Of these, 350 were formal complaints, while 48 were dealt with informally. In total, 41 per cent of complaints were either upheld or partly upheld, while 37 per cent were not upheld.

The largest portion of complaints concerned delays and communications (27 per cent), while assessments and care plans made up 20 per cent, charges and costs of service made up 15 per cent, and complaints about workers made up 13 per cent.

Various case examples were given in the report.

One stated: "The family of a person who desperately needed support were becoming extremely frustrated by the system, and as multiple agencies were involved, the family were getting very confused by conflicting information."

When a team manager took the time to review all of the information and speak to the family over the phone, they withdrew their complaint. The family were quoted as saying: "Please don't spend hours typing out a complaint response – it is not required. The call was plenty and having someone to unburden to felt amazingly cathartic."

Another complaint about a person "in an inappropriate place too far from the family" was upheld, as it was noted: "Outcomes should have identified how a care home would support with maintaining family and social relationships."

The report stated: "Communication is a recurring theme in most complaints. This includes failures to keep in touch within reasonable timescales, letters and other correspondence not including all the necessary information and workers providing incorrect or incomplete information.

"Whilst some of the complaints about communication are due to errors by practitioners, some are due to a misunderstanding by the complainant of the role of adult care services, the services available and information about processes, in particular the charging policy. Social care is complex, and it can be difficult to find ways to present all the information in an accessible way."

Elsewhere, it was revealed complaints to the ombudsman about adult care social services in Hertfordshire have nearly doubled.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman received 25 complaints about adult social services in Hertfordshire in 2023/24 with £7,450 remedies paid out, compared to just 13 complaints and £4,450 remedies the year previously.

The report said that of these 25 complaints, the ombudsman decided not to investigate 13 stating they were premature or there was insufficient evidence. In two cases, the ombudsman did not find fault with Hertfordshire County Council.

Seven cases were upheld or partially upheld; and three are ongoing.

Despite this, there were some positives in the report. Compliments to the adult care social service team outweighed complaints, with 501 compliments submitted in 2023/24 – far higher than the 387 received the year previously.

Examples of compliments included: "I wanted to thank you on behalf of both my parents, as well as myself, for the care and attention you applied to the re-assessment of XX's assessed contribution. Your time and effort were greatly appreciated…"

Another service user said: "Your input may well have played a vital part in helping me recover from an extended period of stress and carer breakdown," while a third person wrote: "Her gentle spirit is like a balm to my anxieties."

Discussing the report, Cllr Richard Thake said he felt "absolutely certain" that action would be taken to remedy complaints, before asking if the compliments were "solicited".

Principal social worker Lucy Rush, director of practice and quality, said: "Yes, they most certainly are unsolicited, we don't go out of our way to kind of look for that feedback per se. We do in the sense that we have our annual surveys and thing like that, but for this report, these are purely compliments that have come through via email or feedback forms and things like that."

Cllr Thake said: "It's refreshing to see the burgeoning number of compliments is outstripping the complaints in terms of percentage wise, so obviously you're doing something an awful lot right."