A mum has won £21,000 after she was forced to carry her disabled child between rooms for over three years because council staff failed to find them a wheelchair-friendly house. Delays in rehousing the family meant the child couldn’t have essential pain-relieving surgery as they had no suitable place to recover, a report from council watchdog the Local Government Ombudsman revealed.
A healthcare professional said that the delays in finding the family a suitable flat meant the child would never be able to stand up again and now needed an entirely different operation. In a damning assessment of the council’s handling of the case, Ombudsman chief executive Nigel Ellis said in a report, which did not name the mother and child, that there was “no evidence” the council tried to find them an alternative suitable house for most of the three years the family lived in the flat.
He said the child and their mother were put at “significant and avoidable risk of harm over a prolonged period” due to the London council’s failures, MyLondon reports.
.png?w=600)
