Neglect and ‘institutionalised’ abuse caused care home deaths

A coroner’s inquest has found 19 elderly patients died amid ‘institutionalised’ abuse and that, in the case of five of them, neglect was a contributing factor in their deaths.
Speaking at the close of the five-week inquest Penelope Schofield, the presiding coroner, said there was “institutionalised abuse” at the Orchid View Care Home, West Sussex, and that its employees should be “ashamed”.

The inquest heard details of the shocking conditions elderly residents endured at the care home in 2010 and 2011.

Residents were given wrong doses of medication, left soiled and unattended due to staff shortages and there was a lack of management. Call bells were often not answered for long periods or could not be reached by elderly people, and the home was deemed “an accident waiting to happen”.

Ms Schofield said: “It started, in my view, at a very early stage, and nobody did anything about it.

“This, to me, was from the top down. It was completely mismanaged and understaffed and failed to provide a safe environment for residents.”

Orchid View, which was run by Southern Cross, closed down in late 2011 after an investigation by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found it had failed to meet eight of their essential standards of quality and safety. The care home has since reopened under a new name and new management.

This inquest has raised fresh concerns about the standards in some care homes across the UK and intensified demands for improvements to be made to the standards of care that is provided in some homes.

Linzi Collings, daughter of Jean Halfpenny, an Orchid View resident who died after being over-administered a blood thinning drug, said: “Our mum deserved to be treated with dignity and compassion but Orchid View failed to provide her with even a basic level of care, despite being paid a significant amount of money to do so.

“We believe dramatic changes are needed to the current care system, starting firstly with greater accountability for care home owners, if they are found to be making unnecessary mistakes and offering substandard services.”

Ms Collings along with the families of six other Orchid View residents, has instructed medical law experts at Irwin Mitchell to investigate the circumstances surrounding their loved ones’ deaths.

Andrea Sutcliffe, the CQC’s chief inspector of Adult Social Care said: “I am shocked at the descriptions of the care received by residents at Orchid View in 2010 and 2011. This was completely unacceptable, and I extend my sympathies to the relatives of everyone who received poor care there.

“We need to learn lessons from what happened at Orchid View. I will personally oversee a thorough review of our actions in relation to Orchid View to make sure we learn from it and build any findings into our new way of inspecting.

“This week, I outlined my proposals for changing the way we inspect, monitor and regulate care homes to ensure that these services are safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to people’s needs.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The lack of care and concern shown towards these care residents was truly appalling.

“We have made it clear that there must be a sharper focus on taking tougher action when things go wrong and holding those responsible to account.

“Confidence in the regulation regime has been shaken, but we have now turned a corner. We welcome Andrea Sutcliffe’s commitment to protecting vulnerable people from abuse and neglect, and to ensuring they receive better care.

“We need to make sure that providers and staff are always meeting the basic requirements for care residents so they are protected from harm, treated with dignity and respect, involved in their care, and given the chance to live a fulfilling life.

“We need to make sure everything possible is done to protect people from poor care wherever it might take place.”