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Complaints about the abusive treatment of elderly people in nursing homes are often ignored for many months by state and Federal officials, Congressional investigators said today.

Relatives of people who have died in nursing homes told Congress they were outraged that no one had looked into their complaints about substandard care.

William J. Scanlon, director of health care studies at the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that the Federal Government would spend $39 billion on nursing home care this year, but that complaints about serious harm to nursing home residents "often go uninvestigated".

Moreover, Mr. Scanlon said, Federal officials do little to prod, supervise or monitor the states, which are responsible for the initial inquiries.

Mr. Scanlon and two relatives of nursing home residents testified at a hearing of the Senate Special Committee of Aging, headed by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa.

The accounting office found that one-fourth of the nation's 17,000 nursing homes had deficiencies that caused "immediate jeopardy or actual harm" to residents. Most fines and other penalties proposed by the Federal Government are never actually imposed, and nursing homes that correct deficiencies often violate the law again, the auditors said.

David R. Seckman, acting president of the American Health Care Association, a trade group for nursing homes, said that inspectors often focused on "technical violations posing no jeopardy to residents." The Government often seemed more eager to punish nursing homes than to work with them to fix problems, Mr. Seckman said.

President Clinton announced a major initiative to improve the quality of care in nursing homes last July, but the accounting office found that problems persisted in many states.

The G.A.O. said the states had failed to investigate hundreds of complaints like these:

- A Baltimore nursing home had no hot water for months at a time. A resident was "sitting in urine for extended periods of time."

- A resident of a Detroit nursing home fell, shattered her hip and complained of pain, but X-rays were not taken for three days, and then only after the family demanded attention for her.

- A patient at another Michigan nursing home had maggots in the sores of his feet, but the staff would not send him to a hospital because the home's nursing director feared that a state agency would be called in to investigate.

In a March 8 letter, the Senate Aging Committee invited Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, administrator of the Federal Health Care Financing Administration, to testify today. But the Clinton Administration refused to testify, saying the committee had violated protocol by allowing ordinary citizens to testify prior to officials from the executive branch.

Senators of both parties said the Administration's demand was petty and unreasonable.

"It's totally unacceptable," said Senator John B. Breaux of Louisiana, the senior Democrat on the committee. Mr. Grassley said the Administration's refusal to testify suggested that it was not serious about responding to consumers' complaints.

Michael Hash, deputy administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, said he agreed that "we need stricter standards for the prompt investigation of serious complaints." States will now have to investigate any complaint of "actual harm" to a nursing home resident within 10 working days, Mr. Hash said.

One witness, Gloria Cruz, said she had been frustrated in efforts to get Maryland authorities to investigate the death of her grandmother in October, one week after being released from a Baltimore nursing home. Ms. Cruz said she filed a complaint asserting that the nursing home had been negligent.

Ms. Cruz said a Maryland health official told her that the state authorities were very busy because they received 80 complaints a month and had to "deal with the live residents before they deal with the dead ones."

In an interview, Carol Benner, director of licensing and certification at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said: "I would hope that my staff would not be that insensitive. This nursing home did not have a poor track record. We investigate complaints immediately when we can make a difference. But if a resident has died, we can investigate at a later time because it's clear that the investigation won't have an impact on that resident."