1 December 2012: TENS of thousands of vulnerable people are being physically and mentally abused by the very people meant to be caring for them. Disturbing figures reveal that 130,000 adults were ill treated – usually at the hands of carers or family. Abuse most often took place in their own home or care home. Read more here.
1 December 2012: Abuse of elderly patients by NHS staff rises by a third in one year with a shocking 36,000 offences reported last year alone. Read more here.
1 December 2012: Care home regulation criticised by Norman Lamb. Regulation of the care sector is not fit for purpose, care minister Norman Lamb has said as he unveiled proposals on English care homes for consultation. He also said there was a “significant lack of corporate accountability for the quality of care”. One suggested measure involves companies having to open up their books to inspectors to ensure they are financially sound. Read more here.
1 December 2012: Care home companies could be forced to open books to prevent another ‘Southern Cross’ collapse. Read more here.
4 December 2012: Care home job advertisements ‘encouraging’ criminals to apply. Convicted criminals have been encouraged to apply for jobs in care homes looking after frail, elderly people. Read more here.
4 December 2012: Ann Clwyd, Labour MP tells of inhumane treatment and says she fears normalisation of cruelty now rife among NHS nurses. Ann Clwyd has said her biggest regret is that she didn’t “stand in the hospital corridor and scream” in protest at the “almost callous lack of care” with which nurses treated her husband as he lay dying in the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Read more here.
4 December 2012: Melton Court care home to be closed by Friday. The manager of a South Yorkshire care home, which has been ordered to close by Friday, says she is in talks with two potential new providers. The 21 residents at Melton Court in Maltby have to find new homes, after it emerged the owner is in prison. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) revoked Ishtiaq Zahir’s licence and said the home is operating illegally. Read more here.
5 December 2012: A PENSIONER with Alzheimer’s died after she plunged down a lift shaft when the door was left unsecured, a court heard yesterday. Annfield Plain company faces health and safety charges after tragedy. Read more here.
5 December 2012: Wrexham – Concerns over care at mental health hospital. Read more here.
6 December 2012: Leicester – Dementia sufferer ‘left in agony’ at George Hythe House care home in Beaumont Leys, court hears. An 89-year-old dementia sufferer was left in agony for four hours with a broken thigh because a care home supervisor could not be bothered to assess her, a jury heard. Sarah Bewley was “too busy” doing paperwork to see the woman after she suffered a fall, despite several requests from a care assistant, it was claimed. Read more here. See below.
7 December 2012: Regulator moves closer to setting up ‘negative register’ of adult care staff. If the proposals are approved by government, a national code of conduct would be applied to workforce and the HCPC would consider serious complaints made about individual professionals; any decisions to uphold a complaint would be made public, as would the resulting sanction.
A “negative register” would be maintained of those found unfit to practise. Read more here.
7 December 2012: Leicester – Jury clears Leicester care home boss of neglect charge. After the not guilty verdict was announced, Judge Lynn Tayton QC said: “This case raises very worrying issues, particularly concerning systems that seemed to be in place which created a situation in which no-one took responsibility for the care of this lady. “She was left in severe and unnecessary pain for a number of hours.”I hope those in charge of the home have looked at the systems and the staff training.” Read more here.
- No organised stock control system of medicines
- Failure of staff to update crucial medical documents
- Care plans reviews not completed on time
- Failure to ensure prescribed medicines were always available
- Medicine doses not being documented, meaning it was unclear whether medications had been administered
- No appropriate systems in place for the safe disposal of medicines when they were no longer required.
Read the CQC report on Cleeve Villas here.
That list of failures is just the kind of thing most people don’t know about, so awareness raised to the top is what we need in the world of care.
When it comes to the comment made by the spokeswoman for Cleeve Villas Care Services : “As a dedicated provider of care services, we at Cleeve Villas have taken on board the suggestions from CQC as to how to enhance our overall performance and have already taken steps working with a specialist healthcare consultancy to address these.”Our aim as always is to ensure the individual and complex needs of our residents are met.”
I don’t believe you. Yet. This is not the first CQC detailing same/similar problems. What has taken you so long to show that you care enough to provide good quality care?
9 December 2012: Vulnerable care home residents are treated like “brutes or malfunctioning machines”, said Hilary Mantel, the author, as she spoke of the “utterly depressing” search to find accommodation for a disabled friend. Read more here.
10 December 2012: We haven’t a clue how much a care home will cost us. The vexed question of how we pay for the care needs of Britain’s ageing population rears its ugly head so often that it is no wonder everyone thinks it is a pain in the neck. Read more here.
10 December 2012: Star ratings: Families need reliable information on care home performance. Read more here.
10 December 2012: Preventative care for elderly under threat. Services have been cut or frozen by two-thirds of local councils since coalition came to power, according to ComRes study. Read more here.
10 December 2012: A Birmingham care home is being investigated by council and health bosses amid allegations of neglect. Bramley Court Care Home, in School Road, Yardley Wood, is facing the probe after a complaint was made about the standard of care given to elderly residents. New admissions have been suspended while a joint investigation is carried out by the city council and NHS Birmingham and Solihull. It is not the first time the home has been in the spotlight over its treatment of residents. In August a report by watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, found residents were being put at risk of not receiving adequate food and drink. Read more here.
10 December 2012: Winterbourne View scandal prompts new care guidelinesReport warns that care sector risks slipping back into institutional culture typified by Victorian asylum system.
The report warns that, elsewhere, staffing cuts caused by reduced fees paid to care providers are causing residents to be left alone for hours at a time and are fostering excessive reliance on use of drugs and on physical restraint, “often for minor perceived misdemeanours”.
Brendan Sarsfield, Family Mosaic’s chief executive, said: “We would argue that if providers don’t believe this has ever happened in their services, it just may be that they haven’t looked hard enough. Read more here.
10 December 2012: Care home provider Family Mosaic has warned that the care sector is in danger of slipping back into the institutional ways of the past and is urging care providers “not to be complacent” and be vigilant for danger signs of abuse. Read more here.
10 December 2012: Winterbourne View scandal: Government rethinks use of hospitals. Norman Lamb said “”We need to have a situation where people who run care organisations – public or private sector or voluntary – know that they are accountable for the services they provide and there are consequences if they don’t.” You can’t argue with that so let’s home he brings about accountability. Read more here.
12 December 2012: Copthorne, Sussex – Care home boss suspended over death of patient. A care home manager has been suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Council over allegations she shredded a document to cover up a mistake which led to the death of a resident. The resident of Orchid View care home in Copthorne was given three times the prescribed dosage of Warfarin, a drug used to prevent blood clots, over 17 days in 2010. Read more here.
12 December 2012: Stockton care home boss denies a catalogue of failures. Meal times at the home were “appallingly organised” and 15 out of 17 patients lost weight over a one-month period, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard. Read more here.
12 December 2012: York care home warned to make urgent improvements. The Care Quality Commission has issued a formal warning to Mimosa Healthcare (No 4) Limited, which is the registered provider of Birchlands Care Home, that they are failing to protect the safety and welfare of the people using the service. Read more here.
12 December 2012: Wall Heath care home told to shape up or face enforcement action. The Care Quality Commision (CQC) is demanding an improvement in the standards of care at Holbeche House after inspectors found failings during an unannounced visit in October. The Wolverhampton Road home, which is run by Four Seasons (Bamford) Limited, was found to be below standards for the care and welfare of service users and assessing and monitoring the quality of services. Andrea Gordon, deputy director of operations (central region) for CQC, said: “The law says these are the standards that everyone should be able to expect. Providers have a duty to ensure they are compliant. Read more here.
12 December 2012: Nurse at Rodborough care home slept with vulnerable female patient and invited another to swingers’ parties. Trevor Rice, a senior triage mental health nurse at Park House Mental Health Resource Centre, was formally removed from his post by a Nursing and Midwifery Council disciplinary committee on November 23. Read more here.
12 December 2012: A bungling nurse who was cleared to work in Sussex despite making a number of shocking errors is being investigated for a second time. Nicanor Sindanum made national headlines after he was allowed to continue to work as a nurse despite being found guilty of 17 serious errors by a nursing panel while working in Scotland. In June this year a nine-month banning order imposed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in September 2011 was revoked and replaced with conditions of practice order. This meant that, despite his failings, Sindanum was allowed to start work for an Eastbourne care home so long as he told bosses that he had restrictions placed on him. But now it has emerged that Sindanum faces a second investigation for alleged failings dating from 2009. Read more here.
13 December 2012: Slyne-with-Hest, Lancashire – Four people have been charged with offences under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 following a police investigation into the mistreatment of residents at a care home in Slyne. Read more here.
13 December 2012: Wales – More should be done to reduce Wales’ reliance on using care homes as a way to look after older people, says a group of Assembly Members. The assembly’s health committee has backed moves to help people keep their independence for as long as possible. Families need simple and accessible information about the options available for elderly relatives, it said. It pointed out that many elderly people who pay for their own care were unaware of the help available to them. Read more here.
13 December 202: Panshanger, Welwyn, Herts -Massive arrogance’ jibe as ‘out of scale’ care home plans thrown out. Read more here.
13 December 2012: Morpeth, Northumberland – Coroner hits out at care of woman in Morpeth home. Mr Brown, recording a narrative verdict, yesterday concluded the fall “did play a part” in Mrs McEwan’s death as the fractured femur caused immobility which made her more susceptible to the fatal complaint. The coroner also found three serious failures in the care of Mrs McEwan.
He ruled senior carer Stephanie Wilson had left Mrs McEwan’s bed in an elevated position, moments before she fell while trying to get into it.
Furthermore, Mr Brown said staff had failed by phoning a doctor’s surgery instead of an ambulance after the fall, even though Mrs McEwan was in obvious pain and in need of such care immediately.
Finally, the coroner said workers had been wrong to lift Mrs McEwan back on the bed, saying they should have left her where she was comfortable until the ambulance arrived.
Mr Brown nevertheless accepted that staff had been misguided and in need of better training rather than motivated by malice. Read more here.
13 December 2012: Croydon – Are Croydon care homes up to the job of looking after borough’s most vulnerable? Nearly a third of care homes in the south of the borough are failing patients and residents in one or more key standard, an Advertiser investigation has found.
Campaigners for better care say the findings paint a “dire” picture for sick and elderly people at a time when savings in care provision are set to be enforced.
Among those that are failing in one or more key standard are homes which charge elderly people up to £800 a week.
Stuart Routledge, chief executive of Age UK Croydon, said: “It is appalling that any nursing home should fail to protect the dignity and respect of their patients and residents.
“This survey underpins the urgency for social care funding reform so that those older people who struggle daily with chronic ill health, frailty and disability have the peace of mind that they will be well cared for at their time of need.
“In particular, this shows the dire consequences of a social care system that has been under increasing financial pressure over the last eight years and in many areas is now financially stripped to the bone.
“Staff across health and care services have a professional and moral duty to make sure the dignity of their patients and residents is enshrined in every action. This means involving people in decisions about their care, providing care that treats people with respect and helping people to be as independent possible.”
Care in the UK 
The issue of abuse, harm, neglect to the most vulnerable is pervasive in every single sector of the ‘care system’, as you have well highlighted.
The focus on local authority safeguarding alerts (the 130,000 you mention from NHS statistics) shows a change- families have been replaced as the greater perpetrators by paid carers. Yet it is local authorities who buy these care agency services and they are happy to demonise families who may only be struggling to care, yet will give a ‘light touch’ to investigations of care agency management / staff. This would explain the changed statistics from the previous year of increased substantiations, at some level, of the allegations. I expect more care agency staff are now being found out, possibly with family covert recordings.
The fact is social workers are unfit to undertake safeguarding investigations as they work on gut instincts and at the direction of their managers. They do not have the skills of inverstigation like the police, so are mere ‘kangeroo courts’. They will not be encouraged to damn a care agency whose cheap contract the local authority depends upon. Especially when the same local authority may be ‘short changing’ on care packages for the most vulnerable, putting them at greater risk of harm in any setting.
THIS IS THE DISGRACE OF THE GOVERNMENT GIVING POWER TO CORRUPT AND SELF PROMOTING SOCIAL SERVICES DIRECTORS AND THEIR DEPARTMENTS WITH FAT SALARIES, WHO MERELY USE BUDGET CUTS AS AN EXCUSE FOR BEHAVIOURS OF LONG STANDING.