Death of Python star may have ‘saved’ trust from scrutiny over care home death – NHS manager
An NHS manager wrote that the mental health trust he works for “may have been saved” by the death of Monty Python star Terry Jones (pictured), suggesting this reduced media coverage of the death of an elderly woman in a local care home.
Mark Prentice, communications manager at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, inadvertently copied a journalist into his email on Thursday.
He wrote: “We seem to have got away (again) with the Adult Safeguarding Review story.
“I used iPlayer to check Radio Norfolk between 4pm and 7pm last night, and it was not on there at all.
“I think we may have been saved by the death of Terry Jones.”
Mr Prentice was referring to a story about 89-year-old Doreen Livermore, who died after she was pushed to the ground by a man with dementia at a care home in King’s Lynn in Norfolk in 2017.
In his email, he wrote that “we emerged virtually unscathed” and the trust was not named on a local BBC TV news report about Ms Livermore’s death but the presenter “said something along the lines of ‘no agency involved in Doreen Livermore’s care emerged without criticism'”.
Jonathan Warren, chief executive of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are undertaking an investigation regarding the inappropriate comments made about the sad death of Doreen Livermore by a member of our staff.
“We take this very seriously and will be contacting the family of Mrs Livermore to give them our sincere apologies and offer them our support.”
The trust has been assessed by watchdog the Care Quality Commission as requiring improvement in a report published this month and has been rated as “inadequate” three times in recent years.
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