Care UK regrets they weren’t able to care for you, madam

With apologies and thanks to Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald, two of your favourites.

Care UK regrets they weren’t able to care for you, madam.

Care UK regrets they weren’t able to care for you.

They can’t even apologise.

Best they can do is  just general regret, madam.

Care UK regrets they weren’t able to care for you.

“Care UK strives to provide appropriate care for all their residents across the various services that they run.”  Allegedly.

“It is always a matter of regret if a service is not provided as they would wish.”   Allegedly.

Apparently I “clearly consider that there were failings in the care provided” to you.  I most certainly do, and I’m not alone in that opinion.

Care UK’s solicitor has been asked “to pass on their regret in respect of this”.

Care UK has been made aware of the fact that Catherine Igbokwe and Sheila Ali have both been struck off the register by the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) for misconduct and for failing you miserably, and that Maria Rholyn Secuya (nee Baquerfo) has received a 3 year caution order for misconduct and for failing you miserably, and that Dahlia Dela Cerna (nee Enriquez) has received a 2 year caution order for misconduct and for failing you miserably.

Care UK can only  come up with an expression of general regret, via a third party at that.  General regret is overworked these days.

Care UK promised to provide a substantial sum in your memory, acknowledging that it failed miserably to provide care to you, and so that we would be able to establish what Care UK’s then Managing Director of Residential Care called “a positive contribution to the world of dementia”. In your memory.   Care UK has now broken that promise.  How foolish we were to place our trust in Care UK.

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 in the UK – 5 years on – Part 1

Five years to the day after you died, I am now able to tell the world of the circumstances surrounding your sad death.  I’ve had to keep it fairly close to my heart for reasons that will become obvious.

You arrived at Lennox House, a so-called care home provided by so-called care provider Care UK, in Islington/Holloway, London on 28 November 2007, having spent the previous 4 months incarcerated (against my will, and against your will too) in a hellhole of an assessment unit.  Your vascular dementia was too challenging for all but you.  The extra-care sheltered housing recommended as eminently suitable for you was eminently unsuitable for everyone, with or without dementia.  Thanks to the Notting Hill Housing Group, and thanks also to Islington Council’s commissioning department who didn’t seem to know what they’d commissioned.

So, within a year of what they called ‘independent living’ but which was, in reality, ‘independent dying’, we were persuaded to agree to you and all your needs being assessed.  How wrong we were.  But we had no way of knowing, of course, that the social worker was not being HOT – honest, open and transparent.  Your needs weren’t assessed at all.  You were merely drugged up to the eyeballs, to keep you controlled.  Within 3 months – when even a couple of the staff asked us why you were there, when you were so lively, cheerful and chatty, even though you quite rightly wanted to get out of the place – you became a gibbering idiot.  We were given the big refusal when we asked what medications you were being given that could have had such a dramatic impact on you, in just a few weeks.  We persevered and discovered that you were on Buprenorphine, an opioid painkiller.  That was one hell of a kick in the teeth, for you; you’d only ever taken paracetamol before to deal with your back pain.  But your back pain turned out to be osteoporosis.  So I extend my thanks to your GPs who never bothered to look further than their noses, until we insisted on further investigation.  Not that it was severe enough for that kind of painkiller.

Then along came Amitryptiline, alongside the Buprenorphine,  and they worked their evil on you.   There was nothing we could do.  Nobody would listen to us.

We wanted to move you away from that assessment unit.  I told the social worker in August 2007 that if they kept you there for long, you would die. I wasn’t far wrong, was I? But the social worker knew best, even though she’d only known you for months of your 83 years. Aided and abetted by her superiors, kept you there, until such time as the Mental Capacity Act came into full force on 1 October 2007.  We were told that if we didn’t like the decision made – by a show of hands at a ward meeting to which we were not even invited, but people who’d met you only once were able to show their vote – we could do the other: take it to the Court of Protection.  Thanks here to Doug Wilson, Phoebe Masso and a few others who were all involved in this strange kind of decision-making in their best interests, but not in your best interests..   We started to fill in all the appropriate forms for the Court of Protection.

We couldn’t bear to see you suffer.  So we agreed to your move to Lennox House so-called care home, so called state-of-the-art ‘flagship’ care home, the way forward for dementia care.  You arrived there, in the nursing section, on 28 November 2007, awaiting a bed in the residential section.  Your needs were then not for nursing care.  Still upstanding, still able to ask us questions, still able to say that you wanted to go home.  But it was clear to us that we would never be able to achieve that for you.  We spent the first few days with you, hoping that you’d settle and be able to regain your strength, and the fighting spirit you’d shown all your life.  83 years and a bit of a great life.

We phoned daily and were told you were settling in well; walking the corridors – that was your normal, as someone who could never sit still for long.  Always doing something, always on the move, always active.

Ten days later, at 0915 on Saturday 8 December 2007, we received a phone call telling us that you’d been admitted to the Whittington Hospital’s A&E department, as you were in spasm, had a possible seizure, and that you were needing oxygen “and we can’t give her oxygen here”.  That’s what Lennox House told us.  Before we left home to head for London, I took another phone call.  This time from the Whittington doctor, telling me that we would have to make serious decisions about the degree of intervention they should take.  The A&E Consultant told me that you were unlikely to live beyond that day.

He didn’t know you, though.  You managed to cling to life for another 3 weeks, before giving up your fight.  Before you lost your fight, I began asking questions as to what on earth could have happened in the 7 days since I saw you last.

I first asked the Alzheimer’s Society for help when I first realised that something had gone seriously wrong.  They refused me any assistance at all, saying that they didn’t get involved in this “kind of thing”.  I explained that I wasn’t asking them to get involved, just to point me in the direction of help and support.  That’s what I understood the Alzheimer’s Society to be all about.  But I didn’t know then as much as I know now about the Alzheimer’s Society’s  close connections to local authorities, and to care providers.  Nor had I then been told by a couple of the Alzheimer’s Society’s representatives that they thought I was what they called a troll, who had never had any connections with dementia, with social services, with care homes, and so on.  They have continued with that kind of unkind care too.  So I extend my thanks to the Alzheimer’s Society for showing me that they don’t really care.

I decided to go it alone from then on, expecting no support from anyone, but accepting any support that came my way.  For the support that came, I will be forever grateful.  As for the support refused or contorted by lies, I will be forever perplexed.

It’s taken me 5 years to get answers to some but by no means all of my questions.  Many will never be answered because people in positions of power seem not to understand those little HOT words: honest, open and transparent.  I’ve never heard so many untruths told.  And still being told too, after all this time.  So it’s not over yet.

Two separate investigations have taken place into the circumstances surrounding your neglect in care, with 2 very different reports emerging from them.

Last week, the NMC made some decisions, about the staff employed by Care UK and working then at Lennox House.

Catherine Igbokwe was struck off by the NMC.   She will never do to others what she did to you.

Maria Rholyn Secuya (nee Baquerfo) was given a 3 year caution order by the NMC.  She will have to be on her best behaviour.

Sheila Ali, the care home manager/nurse, is challenging the decision made thus far by the NMC, so her barrister has decided to seek approval for a Judicial Review. In the interim, she has a 9 month suspension order – but that may change.

The case of Dahlia Dela  Cerna (nee Enriquez) has been adjourned until next year.

This is all available on the NMC website of Hearings/Outcomes for 17 to 21 December 2012.  Available here in the public domain.

As are these two articles that appeared in the press:

8 August 2008 – Daily Mail article here.  “Care home boss suspended after dead bodies of two pensioners ‘are left for days’.”

Yesterday, 28 December 2012 – Islington Gazette article by Meyrem Hussein here.  “Pensioner ‘is left in agony for days’ at Holloway care home”.

So, that’s where I’ve got to, five years to the day after your departure from this world.

You deserved better care.

(To be continued)