Care in the UK makes progress

Last week saw the final stage of the hearings, at one of numerous NMC locations that have hosted the fitness-to-practise procedures, into the lack of nursing care provided to you during the time you were in Lennox House care home, Holloway/Islington, in 2007, and just before your death.  Appropriately enough, we were directly opposite the Old Bailey for the finale.

Over the main entrance to the Old Bailey, which opened in 1907, figures were placed representing fortitude, the recording angel, and truth, along with the inscription

“DEFEND THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR & PUNISH THE WRONGDOER”

As I sat in the hearing room on the 5th floor of the building,  those words were directly in front of my eyes all week.

On 17th April 2013, Sheila Ali the former care home manager / nurse  was struck off; her name is removed from the register of nurses allowed to provide nursing care to people.   She wasn’t present to hear the decision because, overnight, she decided suddenly to withdraw from the proceedings, and to remove her instructions from the barrister who had represented her.  When he announced this to the hearing, he was invited to leave.  He left.  So neither of them was present to hear the decision.

On 19th April 2013, Dahlia Dela Cerna/Enriquez wept as she received a 2-year caution order, having been found guilty of misconduct and with current impairment.  That’s the first time she’s shown anything that resembled human emotion.  They have all shown callous disregard for you – and for me.

On 21st December 2012, Catherine Igbokwe was struck off,  having been found guilty of misconduct and with current impairment, so her name was removed from the register.

On 21st December 2012, Maria Rholyn Secuya/Baquerfo received a 3-year caution order, having been found guilty of misconduct and with current impairment.

The documents in the above links are very long but very detailed.  Words I’ve heard used to describe the hearings include ‘complex’, ‘extremely involved’, ‘complicated’ and ‘very difficult’.  The decision documents are just that too.  Presumably to deter people from reading them in full, and in detail.

After you died, over 5 years ago in December 2007, there were lots of investigations and reports written, some of which I have never been allowed to see.   No matter how hard I’ve tried, the words written have all been kept behind closed doors, far away from the eyes of those who cared about you.  We, your family, have never been granted access to the full reports of the investigations by Islington local authority.

It was on 1st October 2008 that I first referred these nurses to the NMC.  The hearings at the NMC began on 6th February 2012 and concluded almost 15 months later  on 19th April 2013.  Once I had been called as a witness and had given my evidence, I attended every single day as an Observer.  So I observed and heard every single word spoken in public.

Needless to say, I’ve heard things said that I have never known about.  I never knew before now, for example, that the care home manager Sheila Ali had been in Lennox House all day on 7 December 2007 without bothering to come to see you or to dial 999, even though she had apparently been alerted to the fact that you were in spasm for long periods, unable to speak, unable to swallow, unable to move.   She didn’t care.

She didn’t care much for those residents mentioned in this article in the Daily Mail in August 2008, bearing the gruesome title ‘Care home boss suspended after dead bodies of two pensioners ‘are left for days’.  That was 8 months after you’d died.

It goes without saying that there were many other revelations at the hearings too.  No wonder we have never been allowed the full knowledge of your last days.

It’s been extremely difficult for me to sit through those sessions, but I owed that to you and I had to represent you.  It was the only thing I could do on your behalf and in in your absence.  Your voice was taken from you by  Care UK and its so-called care home, Lennox House.

I’ve found it hard to be told, by the legal representatives of the nurses involved, “You have no need to be here” – “These proceedings are nothing to do with you” – “You are not involved in these proceedings”, and so on.  I had every need to be there; the proceedings had much to do with me and with you; I will always remain involved.  There’s more I have to tell, and tell it I will.  Honestly, openly and transparently.

They took away your voice.  Nobody took away my presence.

Care Circus is back in town next week

Well, here we go again.

Next week the Care Circus is back in town.

The latest batch of NMC hearings is about to stir its loins again and get on with the work that it was charged with handling long ago on 1 October 2008.  That was only a few very short months after you died, thanks to the rubbish care that came your way, courtesy of Care UK and Lennox House so-called care home in Islington, London.

It was also a few very short months after I’d asked so many questions of Islington’s Mental Health Care of Older People team, and then Islington’s Social Services, and then the CQC (or CSCI as it was called back at the beginning of 2008), and the Coroner’s Office, and Islington’s Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults Team, and  most of all of Care UK … well, you will know how many questions I asked of them all, each and every one of them.

They don’t like answering questions, do they?  Especially if those demanding but necessary questions are likely to cast a very dim and dark shadow over their (lack of) accomplishments.

Last December 2012, the NMC decided that one nurse involved in your demise should be struck off, from their register of nurses allowed to nurse in the UK.  Another nurse was delivered a 3 year caution order, requiring her to be on her best behaviour.

Next week, 15 to 19 April 2013,  the Circus is back in town.  Fifteen months after the NMC hearings first started, looking in depth at the circumstances surrounding your rapid decline, within 10 days of arrival in that so-called care home, Lennox House, and your admission to hospital in a diabetic coma.  You died 3 weeks later.

The  final 2 cases, still waiting in the wings, are to be dealt with by the NMC next week.

One case  is that of the care home manager, who is mid-way through an interim 9 months suspension order, placed to allow time for her to seek permission for a Judicial Review in the High Court, of the NMC decisions thus far.  The High Court refused permission to seek a Judicial Review.

The clowns will all be wearing their costumes.  Their faces will all be heavily disguised beneath the cake of their make-up.  They will all have their props to support them.  Their scripts will all have been written, re-written and then written again.  Edited, heavily edited, and then edited again.

You weren’t allowed to write a script of  your own, were you?  Let alone edit it.

The script of your final years, months and weeks of your life was snatched from you.  Grabbed by thugs.  The uncaring, unqualified, untrained, unmonitored, unsupervised, unsuitable thugs who were charged with the most basic and fairly simple duty of looking after you.

Next week, they will still be wearing their masks, their costumes  and their heavy make-up.

As they will continue to do year after year.  Uncaring as always.  Unkind in their presentation thus far.  Unwilling to admit that they failed miserably in their duty of care to you, for you and about you.  They didn’t care enough to care.

The chance to wear your dresses, your gentle make-up and to present your smiling face to the world was taken from you.  By the thugs of care.  The thieves of care.  The robbers of care.

Alzheimer’s Society and the Horse fraternity

Over recent months or even years, many people have become irritated, bemused, frustrated, confused and perplexed by the Alzheimer’s Society’s online chat room also known as Talking Point.  Posts have been dumbed down and members dumbfounded by many of the decisions made by the appointed representatives of the Alzheimer’s Society, working and operating its online forum.

Many people were hoping that things had changed, once the Alzheimer’s Society had rid itself of what it perceived to be irritating members who were brave enough to challenge the Administrative nonsense going on.  Similar to the way that Julie  Bailey and ‘Cure the NHS’ have challenged the brick walls of care, resulting at long last in the Francis Report.

It is so easy for the Alz Soc to ban forum members who challenged the ignorant actions of its Administrators and Moderators.  The Alz Soc compromised many members by editing and/or deleting their posts, even if they only referred to Winterbourne View, or … wait for it …. the British Geriatric Society, or even Peter Carter of the RCN.  All mentions were obliterated without being able to be questioned by the members.   Members who posted about BSE or CJD and dementia-linked situations were also deleted and obliterated.

It was all too uncomfortable for the Alzheimer’s Society to contemplate such matters.

It is far too comfortable for the Alzheimer’s Society to silence those members who had the guts to challenge matters.

It makes  me wonder how the Alz Soc will react if/when the latest horse-meat scandal comes to evidence a connection between dementia and the introduction into the human food supply of a drug called Phenylbutazone - a drug that is now only used in the care of horses but which was  previously used in the care of human beings who also happened to have arthritic/rheumatic joint problems.  The experimental use of Phenylbutazone in humans was disastrous and resulted in death, and it also resulted in Phenylbutazone being banned for use in human beings suffering from arthritis/rheumatism.  That was circa 1975, so it’s possible that any use of Phenylbutazone now in human beings is heavily restricted, controlled and monitored.  I hope so.

The Alz Soc shed the skin of those that it felt irritated by, namely those who posted examples of sub-standard care.  All mention of Winterbourne View was eradicated from the forum, as were posts mentioning Southern Cross, to name but a few.

Almost overnight, it became acceptable for people to name Stafford Hospital, to call social services ‘social circuses’, to talk of ‘lies and more lies’ when referring to social care systems that the posters had come by.  Even mention of MPs was suddenly allowed, whereas previous posts mentioning similar had been edited and/or deleted.  So members were thinking that things may be changing and on the up.

The forum Administrators and Moderators prod and poke and provoke.  Until such time as the Alzheimers’s Society’s appointed Administrators and Moderators can ban thinking members.  It’s so much more comfortable for the Alz Soc to leave its own comfort zone untouched and unsullied by those Members of the Alz Soc who would like questions to be answered.

The latest example goes beyond the acceptable when it comes to caring about dementia.  [I choose not to use the word Alzheimer's because it denies recognition of all other forms of dementia.  It also sweeps away most of the important factor that people living in the UK care about at present.]

It is all swept away by someone who has no idea what it means to be trying to achieve quality care in the UK.

Here, the Alzheimer’s Society’s online Talking Point forum:

“While this may be your view, that’s all it is – your view. Some care homes may be like this, some are not. To state that all of anything is untrustworthy is inappropriate in my view.”

Is that the view of the Alzheimer’s Society?  Is it the view of an appointed Alzheimer’s Society person?  Is that the point of view of someone who has not one single clue about what it means to be living in the UK with dementia and caring about those who are living in the UK with dementia, let alone those who are living in the UK and still dealing with the care home system that is so sadly lacking in quality and standards of care.

It is the point of view of someone – an online forum Moderator,  appointed by the Alzheimer’s Society –  who has never had any direct experience of the care home system in the UK, who has never had any experience of social services in the UK, who has never had any dealings with that which most people are dealing with when it comes to care in the UK.

But someone who  is still given full reign to spout about that which affects every single person living in the UK.

A virtual Queen of the World.

HOT Care in the UK

The Francis Report calls for a ‘legal duty of candour’.  He mentioned honesty, transparency and openness too.

He may well have stolen my term for exactly the same kind of care that he’s calling for.

HOT Care.

I’ve been calling for HOT care for more than 7  years now.  As have those affected directly by the Stafford Hospital.  Cure the NHS.  Cure the Care too.

HONEST +  OPEN + TRANSPARENT = HOT

I first used the acronym HOT in my correspondence with Islington Local Authority’s Mental Health Care of Older People team, circa 2005 and many times thereafter.  I’ve called for that same HOT Care in each of my communications with Care UK since 2007 when my relative suffered at the hands of such cold care courtesy of Care UK.

Could we now find a way to move towards HOT Care in the UK?

Is it so impossible for us to expect/demand/require HOT Care?

More Alzheimer’s Society madness

There’s a lull in proceedings at present so I’ve been analysing my Blog stats and the search engine terms people use before finding me.  Fascinating reading it makes too.   The searches range from ‘fugitive nuns on the run in France’ via ‘do I have to declare that I’ve been removed from the NMC register if I apply for a job  as a nurse in a care home?’ to ’what is a stalking horse?’ and  ‘what’s it like to work for the Alzheimer’s Society forum?’.  With a sprinkling of the obvious essay questions such as ‘describe how issues of public concern have altered public views of the care sector’ and ‘what does vicarious liability mean in nursing?’.

I’ve written  a few words about all of the above  - yes, even Nuns on the run- the alternative to residential care  - but I don’t seem to have mentioned what it must be like to work for the Alzheimer’s Society forum.  So here goes, and I confess here and now that I can only comment on the qualities you may need, Dear Searcher, rather than the reality of the life of a moderator or administrator on the Alzheimer’s Society’s Talking Point forum.

This selection of posts by moderators may give you an idea of the heartless, cruel person you need to become, if you are to succeed.

Moderator  1 starts a thread with: “Do not feed the troll. …. because they are cowards …. they never write over (sic!)  their own name and often reveal their trolliness (sic!) in the chosen ID.  ….. Trolls rarely answer a direct question - they cannot, if asked to justify their twaddle – so they develop a fine line of missing the point.” ( Mod 1 then cites Wikipedia as the source of her wisdom, so you had better change your thinking, Dear Searcher, and acknowledge Wiki as a source of wisdom.)

Moderator  2: “Thank you … we learn something every day …. …. and here was I thinking a troll lived under a bridge.”  (Sarcasm is a requirement for a successful application, Dear Searcher.)

Member interrupts this indelicate and immoderate session: “I’m just about to send you a PM (Private Message).”  (You will soon learn the power of the PM system, used and abused by Moderators galore, as they spread their message to their fan-club.)

Moderator 3: “It is my belief we currently have a troll posting to Talking Point.  This is a person who has mental health issues …. Our troll’s aim is destruction, pure and simple.  …. Make no mistake, they don’t even recognize they have a problem.  Sad but true.”  (So, Dear Searcher, you will also need to be as cruel as this moderator can be, even when she has declared openly that she has been taking medication for years for her depression.  Hardly surprising – she spends her whole life moderating the forum immoderately.  Perhaps that is another part of the job description.)

Moderator 1: “I agree with every single point you have made.  That’s why I started this thread.”  (Never disagree with Moderator 3 – that is not allowed.)

Moderator 4: “Thank you …. and thanks for starting this thread.  It’s reassuring to know the facts about trolls.”  (By now, Dear Searcher, you will realise that you need to demonstrate that you have the inner qualities of a dog, the kind of dog used for hunting foxes, now banned as a recreational pastime in the UK.)

Moderator 5: “It’s not me!”

Moderator 3 snaps rudely at a member who has a seriously ill husband and who is upset by this thread but who doesn’t know how to do quotes: “Can I ask something, B,  … because I’ve been wondering?  Do you not know how to do quotes or can’t you be bothered?”  (Rudeness is a requirement.)

Member replies to Moderator 3: “It might have escaped your notice but we, (husband) and I need help.  As do lots of others who are not so verbal as you are.  …. You do not listen!’

Moderator 3 replies to same distressed TP member: “Look, …. We have a person posting on the board who the moderators have good reason to believe is not trustworthy.  In the past, members have exchanged email addresses with this person only to be harassed by them.”

NB.  I have it on good authority that was a lie from Moderator 3, and that the person in question had never harassed anyone by PM or by email.  Moderator 3 then went on to tell more lies. but that’s what Moderator 3 has a nasty habit of doing, all in her own best interests, of course.

This unsavoury and tasteless exchange of posts, largely by moderators but with a few normal interjections by normal TP members, went on for some 70 posts or so, with mention being made by an administrator of the police almost having been called in to deal with this person’s allegedly threatening emails and PMs.  (Telling outrageous untruths is another requirement.  But of course, once you become an Alzheimer’s Society appointed moderator, you will be beyond challenge.  You will be allowed to get away with virtual murder, and there’s nothing the normal membership can do about that.  You will soon adapt to the slaughterhouse that is called Talking Point.)

These are just a few of the qualities you may need, Dear Searcher, if you are to want to apply to work on the Alzheimer’s Society’s online forum.  Surely the Alzheimer’s Society cannot be proud of allowing its moderators and administrators to post like that on what is supposed to be a forum providing support and care for its members.  The Alzheimer’s Society ignores totally the voice of the members.

But fear not, Dear Searcher, the Alzheimer’s Society received a big fat donation of more than £670,000 from Santander in 2011 to fund the online forum Talking Point for 3 years.  It pays for an annual gathering in London of the moderators, the one living  in the US, the one living in Canada, and all the others in the UK, all expenses paid, of course.

Compare and contrast that £670,000 being squandered on a sometimes sad and feeble chat-room, dominated by Moderator 3, with the fact that the Alzheimer’s Society is now planning to charge  dementia sufferers £10  to receive a befriending visit from a Volunteer Befriender.  That’s £10 per visit.   The Alzheimer’s Society says that dementia sufferers can apply for and use a Personal Budget from their local authority to pay for the visit.  That decision is not being received well be the Alzheimer’s Society’s online forum  supporters.  They are voicing their objections here. 

Funny way to run a charity.

Alzheimer’s Society online forum aka Talking Point

I am so uncomfortable with the latest posts on the Alzheimer’s Society’s Talking Point forum that I just cannot walk away today.  Much as I would like to be able to do so.

It is almost unbelievable that the Alzheimer’s Society’s main forum continues to be beyond challenge, alongside its most vocal forum Moderator, the one who is there  24/7  influencing the mindset of people here in the UK -  even though she has not lived here for more than 30 years.

Again, and again, and yet again she stifles and strangles understanding of the situations that people are posting about.  She has not lived in the UK for over 30 years now.  She has never had any dealings with the care home system in the UK. She has never had any dealings with Social Services in the UK.   She has declared that she knows nothing about dementia services in the US, where she has lived for more than 30 years now.

And yet, and yet, and yet, the Alzheimer’s Society in the UK gives her permission to influence thinking here.  Post no. 50 or thereabouts, depending on whether she deletes it by the time this reaches you.  Or it may have been sanitised and/or moved out of public view into the Tea Room.

Her latest attempt to persuade and convince and influence thinking here is that she is now “trying to think of another long term illness like dementia and coming up empty.  The truth is, dementia is unique in its time frame and its effects.”  According to her.

Utter rubbish, and so far from what she calls “the truth”.   However, it may just indicate how ignorant she is of long-term illnesses with far more devastating consequences than dementia.

This has got to stop.

Why does the Alzheimer’s Society allow this to continue? It claims to be “Leading the fight against dementia”.  I am afraid that if the Alzheimer’s Society allows this strangling forum to continue to try to brainwash people, according to moderator  Jenniferpa, it will soon be losing the fight against dementia. And losing support along the way.

She even claims to  know more about our prison system and conditions here in the UK, than most of us do living here, in the UK.  She says that most of us here will have a relative or a neighbour or someone we know who has come to be in prison, here in the UK.  But that’s also been sanitised now, and hidden from public view in what the Alzheimer’s Society calls the “Tea Room”.  If you find your way into the Tea Room you may need more than a cup of PG Tips.

What should be more of a concern for the Alzheimer’s Society is that she does not even know the difference between “NHS Continuing Care” and “NHS Continuing Healthcare”.  A vital difference between the two, and yet the mainly vocal moderator is allowed to pontificate about it all, thereby misleading  people, confusing people, and diverting people away from vital information.

Does the Alzheimer’s Society know the difference between the two?  If not, why should we allow  the Alzheimer’s Society to allow so many people to be misled, misguided and mis-informed?

To use one of her favourite phrases ”Could I just point out …” that the Alzheimer’s Society’s Talking Point online forum is not serving its members well.

Care in the UK – 5 years on – Part 5

The day of your funeral arrived.   It took place late on a cold and dark January afternoon.  It was always destined to be a quiet occasion because you had outlived most of your relatives and friends, so it was to be just a small family affair.  The Service was elegant and personal, with a sprinkling of your good humour and more than a dash of our family history.

Your unexpected and sudden admission to hospital and death there had caused us enormous pain.  We knew by now that there would be a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding your admission to hospital within 10 days of arriving in the care home.  We had hoped to have the time and space for our last farewells to you at the funeral.  We were not even allowed that.  Care UK chose to intrude again in death as it had done in your life.

The Service ended and we followed the Minister out of the Chapel, only to see two people sat right at the back.  The care home manager and another person had chosen to invite themselves to your funeral.  Representing the care home Lennox House and the care provider Care UK  that had failed to care for you.

One of your family had already told the manager that she would not receive a warm welcome at the funeral, so it was disturbing to see that she chose to ignore that advice and that request not to attend.  The Minister spent quite some time talking with us all before he departed, as we stood outside, almost in the darkness, looking at the floral tributes.  Strange though it seemed at the time and strange though it still seems to us, the care home manager went to her car to get her mobile phone and took photographs of some of the flowers that had been designed to reflect part of  your origins.  You’ll know the images I’m talking about here.

Little did we realise though that her motivation for attending your funeral went far beyond the usual reasons for attending a funeral, albeit uninvited and unwelcome.

You remember that ‘Complaints Form’ that I mentioned here before?  The one that allegedly came into being on 31.12.2007 when we chanced to bump into the manager at Lennox House.  Well, after the funeral service  the manager must have driven at speed back to the office, where she signed off the Complaints Form at 18:00 hours, with the words “Resolved” and making references to things that were allegedly said at the funeral.  The form indicates that no further investigation would be required by Care UK as the complaint had been ‘resolved’.  Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

The same Complaints Form made reference to things that she could not possibly have known then, because even we didn’t know then some of the things mentioned on this form and we were the first to know them, later.  Nobody else knew these facts then when the Complaints Form is supposed to have been created and completed.  Contemporaneous?  I doubt it.

But we didn’t know about all of this until July 2008.

Almost her parting words as she left the cemetery, the manager said again “We’ve taken steps to ensure that this kind of thing never happens to anybody else”.  The same words she’d used twice before and said to me on 31.12.2007.    They resemble those oft-used but empty words “lessons have been learned”.  Except that the lessons are never learned well enough to ensure that this never happens again.

I wanted to say to her that – while I could appreciate the benefits others would undoubtedly derive from those steps – they  are steps that should have been taken long before you arrived in that care home.  They’re the most basic elements of care, fundamental to a place that calls itself a ‘care home’.   The elementary fundamentals of care.  Without them being firmly in place, nobody has the right to use the words ‘care home’.

The Investigation would take its course, I said, so we should wait for that before making any comments on it all.  It was a funeral, after all, so everyone was polite, as you would expect of us.  We didn’t know then that there would be two Investigations, both of which revealed much of the same, but with one revealing far more than the other,  including many of the most basic lessons that needed still to be learned.

You only had one chance in that care home.

You deserved better care.

(To be continued)

Care in the UK – 5 years on – Part 4

The next days were spent making arrangements for your funeral. 

I began to follow up some of the questions I’d already asked in mid-December 2007 of the Mental Health Care of Older People Team, part of Camden and Islington NHS / Mental Health and Social Care Trust.  Their social worker wrote to me the day before the funeral to inform me that she’d no longer be the allocated worker, but that her Deputy Manager would be coordinating the “on-going enquiry” into the circumstances leading to your admission to hospital. There was to be a comprehensive investigation under their Adult Protection Procedures.  I asked to be allowed to attend all meetings and to receive a copy of the Report of the Investigation.  The Deputy Manager of the MHCOP team said she didn’t envisage any problems with that request; she knew by then that I’d want and need to stay fully involved.

I’d contacted CSCI (now the CQC) on 20 December 2007, while you were still alive,  to tell them of my concerns about your care, or rather lack of it.  It took them a while to find the right department dealing with Lennox House.  CSCI had not been notified of your sudden admission to hospital on 8 December 2007,  so the inspector I spoke to said they would write to the manager of Lennox House and to me.  I heard nothing back from CSCI, so I phoned them again on 21 January 2008,  to be told that CSCI had indeed written to the manager after my phone call and that they’d received a call back from her to say that she would reply in due course. 

But CSCI  received no response from her, so they contacted her again on 21 January 2008.  That’s when I first discovered that the manager told CSCI, that very day,  that she had ‘arranged’ a meeting with me on 31 December 2007 (as I mentioned here) and that all my ‘concerns had been ironed out’ at that so-called meeting.  That is far from the truth.

Your social worker had a few busy days too, round about 20/21.12.2007, and when I received a copy of your notes (much later in February 2008) I was able to know more.  According to the notes, she’d apparently tried to phone me so many times but had never been able to reach me or to leave a message for me.  Strangely enough, many other people had managed to do just that.  I knew nothing of Adult Protection Procedures or the ‘Form AP2’ that was completed then.  Islington’s Adult Protection Coordinator was busy too, but I did manage to speak with her just the once. 

When I received your notes, sent to me on 12 February 2008, I read that the Adult Protection Coordinator had advised your social worker on 2 January 2008 – well before the funeral – that your family had the right “to request an inquest, though MHCOP would not do this”.    (They are the exact words used in the social worker’s notes.)

Why is it, do you think, that absolutely nobody at all cared enough to pass that vital piece of information to your family?  Not one person told us that we had the right “to request an inquest, though MHCOP would not do this”.  

MHCOP (Mental Health Care of Older People) were well aware that there were serious concerns about the lack of care provided to you by Care UK’s so-called care home Lennox House. 

But nobody cared enough about you or your family to tell us that we had that basic human right.  There were a few other things noted that they could have transmitted to your family too, but nobody cared enough to tell us.  In the best interests of whom was that decision made to withhold vital information from us?

According to the notes, MCHOP were faffing around trying to work out whether there was anybody available in MHCOP with the ‘capacity to conduct an investigation’.  Not wishing to be facetious, but I do wonder whether they meant the ‘mental capacity’ or the ‘physical capacity’ to conduct an investigation.  In the event, an Independent Nurse Consultant was commissioned by MHCOP to carry out the investigation and to write a Report.

The social worker signed off on 8 January 2008 and departed by writing that she would no longer be involved in your case as “the only remaining work is the completion of the POVA enquiry”.  POVA was the Protection of Vulnerable Adults.

You deserved better care.

(To be continued)

 

 

Care in the UK – 5 years on – Part 3

This day five years ago, 31 December 2007, was a difficult one for many reasons.  I know that you won’t wish me to go into the detail of some of those reasons here.

We drove to London again and spent 4 hours at the Whittington Hospital dealing with various formalities. Most of the morning we spent in the PALS office (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) and talking on the phone with the Coroner’s Office and with one of the hospital doctors involved in your care.  We grabbed a coffee and  left at about 1 o’clock, having decided that we did not want to have to return to that part of London again in the near future.

That’s why we went – on the spur of the moment, unplanned and unannounced – to Lennox House to collect your belongings and avoid the need to go back there again.  While you were still alive, just, I’d already asked the manager to send me a copy of everything on your records.   On 20 December 2007 I received a copy of a document that Care UK calls the ‘Daily Record’ .  It was only 9 pages so I asked the manager to copy and send everything else.  It was the only document I’d seen then, but it gave a good indication of the very days when you must have been desperate for help, but no indication of any help being given.

We parked the car and were able to walk straight into Lennox House.  So much for security.  The manager was at reception, but she didn’t recognise us.  She’d only met us once before,  back in August 2007 when we went on a recce to Lennox House, just one of the care homes we looked at.  There was no reason she should have recognised us.  I introduced myself and explained that we’d come to collect your belongings.  She said she’d just been speaking with your niece on the phone and she was planning to collect your things.  It was easier for us to do it there and then, as that niece doesn’t drive.  She also said that she was just writing a note to me, to accompany the paperwork I had asked for.  I said I’d take it all with me and save her the trouble of posting it.

We went to your room, and packed your things; a few were missing, especially two rings.  I asked for them – but I was assured you had not had any rings on your fingers when you arrived in Lennox House.  It was an uncomfortable thing to hear, because we ‘d bought one of those rings, the ruby ring, for your 80th birthday.  The sapphire and diamond ring had been on your finger for the last 60 years –  more years than I care to remember.  I’d noticed you were wearing both rings when we last saw you there, in November.  Eventually, the staff managed to come up with one of the rings.  The other one never surfaced.

We went down to reception.  I was asked to go into the manager’s office, while “His Lordship” as you always called him took your things to the car, before returning.  In that office, I was subjected to an inquisition.  I was expected to go through every single line of the Daily Record and explain my concerns to the manager, as she wrote alterations on the pages.  I thought I’d already done that on the phone earlier in December, but I still had to go through it all again.  It became impossible for me, and I left the office in tears saying I just couldn’t go on with it.  We had spent 4 hours at the Whittington Hospital, and I was exhausted.

I told the manager much of what we’d been through when you were in hospital, including being asked to explain how your diabetes was so out of control.  I’d already spoken with the GP who hadn’t bothered to look at the meds you were taking, when she’d been called to the home, and who told me she was not aware that you were a diabetic.  If she had been given a list of the meds you were taking it would have been obvious to her that you were a diabetic.  If one of the nurses had told the GP you were a diabetic, she might have treated you differently.   (She’d never met you before, as you were new to the care home and new to the surgery providing services to that care home.)  Interestingly, it was only from that Daily Record that I discovered the GP had spoken with Lennox House (on 14 December 2007, while you were in hospital) before she returned my call to her that day.

The manager told me that there were no available glucose strips in that home,  because the GP does not prescribe them.  The manager told me that Care UK wouldn’t provide them either.  To say that I was shocked, again, would be an understatement.  I volunteered to pay for a year’s supply so that no other person with diabetes would ever arrive in A&E in a diabetic coma, like you did.  With much of your bloods and tests ’deranged’ .

I’m still trying to work out why those same words about glucose strips being unavailable are written in your care home notes, in the Daily Record for 7 December 2007.  It’s such a strange few lines to have been added to someone’s personal care record.  After all, you weren’t the only resident with diabetes, so  it strikes me as a very strange addition to your records.  Contemporaneous?  I doubt it.

The manager said “we have taken steps to make sure this never happens again”.

That was too late for you.  You only had one chance.

What I didn’t know until much later (namely July 2008)  was that a ‘Complaints Form’ came into being on this day, five years ago.  Its purpose was to indicate that ‘a meeting had been arranged’ to discuss my concerns, all of which appear to have been resolved that very day.  I learned from CSCI (Commission for Social Care Inspection) that a ‘meeting had been arranged’ this day, 5 years ago, to discuss my concerns.   It must be the first ‘meeting’ where people stood to ’discuss’, rather than sat comfortably.   CSCI asked for a copy of the minutes of that meeting.  CSCI is now the CQC (Care Quality Commission).  There were no minutes – because it was not a meeting.  It was a chance encounter.   (More about this all another time.)

I left Lennox House in tears.  This day 5 years ago.

You deserved better care.

(To be continued)

Care in the UK – 5 years on – Part 2

This day, 5 years ago, was obviously a day of quiet reflection for us, as will be today.  It’ll give me a chance to update this blog over events while you were in intensive care.

All we could do when you arrived in hospital, on Saturday 8 December 2007, was sit with you in ITU, where you were transferred once you had been stabilised in A&E, and once we had discussed with the Consultants.  Questions were beginning to formulate in our minds, caused by the very questions we were asked by the Consultants, but it was a weekend so there was no chance of contacting the social worker or the care home manager.  We left messages on the social worker’s answering system.

The first question we were asked was to explain how your diabetes had come to be so out of control.  Our answer: we never knew it was out of control.  It was as if we were being held responsible.  Only later did we discover that, for some unexplained reason, the paperwork indicated that you lived with us, rather than that you lived in Lennox House in London.  That was our first realisation that the paperwork needed to be looked at with a close eye.  We were asked many more questions, of course, and we were told much about your condition on arrival.  Shocking was your condition.

On the Monday, still in ITU, I had a sudden thought.  The social worker had declared herself “the decision maker” when it came to deciding where you should live.  We were not even invited to the ward round meeting where this important decision about you was made.  She was “the appointed decision maker”, she said.

So, I wondered why she had not responded to my phone message.  After all, surely she should be making decisions now too, shouldn’t she, if she had taken so much power away from us, and from you.   But the social worker was conspicuous by her absence and by her silence.

Then, you were moved into isolation because it was decided you had C-Diff (Clostridium Difficile).   So you spent the next few days in isolation, with us as close as we could get to you.

Still no contact from the social worker.

We had to leave you to go to the funeral of a dear friend, and we were away for a couple of days.  I managed to speak with the social worker and with the care home manager.  I was polite but firm when I asked the care home manager to explain to me exactly what had happened in the days that I hadn’t been with you.  The social worker told me that she had asked for a report from the care home, so I asked to see a copy of it when it emerged.  I never did get to see it.   I also asked the Lennox House care home manager for a copy of every single page of the care home notes, records, paperwork that arrived with you, paperwork that went with you when Lennox House care home sent you by ambulance to A&E.

When I mentioned that you had C-Diff, the care home manager told me that you had had an episode of C-Diff when you were in Highgate Mental Health Unit’s assessment ward, just before discharge from there. That was news to me.  I said I found it surprising the care home had accepted you, and I asked why it hadn’t been mentioned before.  Her words will never leave me.  She said that it often happened that people arrived in the care home with C-Diff, but it wasn’t necessarily mentioned on the paperwork.  She said the same applied to MRSA.

To say that I was stunned would be an understatement.  I was beginning to get used to shock.

I learned that you had been seen by  a GP  - the manager said you’d been seen the Wednesday before admission to hospital.  Not true.  A GP had only been summoned  by the sending of two faxes – yes, faxes – two hours apart on Friday 7 December 2007.  But nobody declared that when the first investigation was carried out.  (More about that another day.)

You were moved out of isolation and ITU to a general ward.  You regained consciousness only briefly, and one day they managed to get you from bed to chair.  Just the once.

You spoke only two words.  “Thank you.”  The last words you ever spoke.

Tomorrow is another day – and it certainly was, 5 years ago.

You deserved better care.

(To be continued)