Case Studies

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable receives correspondence from families worried about unexplained injuries happening in care. This is even more distressing families say, during the COVID family visitation restrictions. We continue our call for the use of safety monitoring in communal areas in all UK care homes and we accept the families that come to us for support and their experiences do not represent the whole of the care sector.

'' My Dad went into a care home on the 9th November 2020 for respite care. He has dementia and Alzheimer’s. My mother was struggling and we decided as a family to place him in a care home for a three week period. After only nine days he tested positive for COVID and on the 25th November and after his saturation and oxygen levels fell an ambulance was eventually called. He was blue lighted to the local hospital where he fell unconscious. Sadly, he died on the 28th of November 2020. On his arrival at the hospital nurses and medics were very concerned with the unexplained injuries on his body, including a yellow eye socket, gash to the head that the doctor said required a CT scan, bruising on his body as well as dangerous low levels of oxygen. The social services report included there was no body map carried out on our father's injuries and he received no regular observations when he became unwell.

Because of the condition, our Dad was in and his family were not made aware, social services and the police we were told needed to be informed. We have now received the outcome from the social services investigation. This report said the nursing home was in fact neglectful in their care of our Dad and his neglect may have contributed to his death. The Coroner also advised us that we were not the first family to raise concerns and the care home only opened in January 2020. Our family want answers. How could our father go into a nursing home for just respite and suffer so many terrible injuries that his family knew nothing about?

''It now seems highly suspicious when we wanted to speak to our Dad by Skpye the care home were making excuses telling us he was asleep.'' Daughter

We believe this was because he had suffered injuries and they were hiding this from us. To add insult to injury we are now are being chased for the payment of his respite care, £1,500. It's unacceptable our father died because we placed him in this care home only to give our elderly mum a break. It's completely unacceptable the care home did not act in the best interest of our father and the obvious neglect he suffered is just heartbreaking.''

Part of the safeguarding report reads, ''There is a risk that other residents at the care home remain at risk from poor clinical decision making, particularly in relation to identifying early warning signs of deterioration, therefore, the care home liaison team are now working with staff to deliver the necessary training to ensure clinical decision making is safe. In terms of the unexplained bruises/marks, the care and support plan was reviewed on 11/11/20 and 18/11/20 Zopiclone was also requested as fatigue was identified as a potential trigger.

No incident reports were completed, therefore, there are no details on which to draw any conclusions. Carers do not seem to have followed the care plan for behaviour management and recorded aggressive incidents on ABC charts/incident reports. The daily logs record an ABC chart was completed on 18th but staff cannot locate it. Poor record-keeping is an area of concern that the Large Scale Enquiry is closely monitoring as part of an action plan”.

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable is supporting this family and we have contacted the care provider and all agencies. If you are interested in this case study please contact ccftv.cares@gmail.com