Secret footage led to five staff being sacked from Devizes care home

A daughter was so concerned about her mother’s treatment in a Devizes care home she set up a secret camera, the footage from which led to five members of staff being sacked.

Mandy Mugford, 52, put a secret camera in the clock on the wall of her mother’s room in May 2012.

Her mother, Margaret Heslop, had been at Avonmead, in Canal Way, for seven months when the secret camera was installed.

The secret footage was featured in the BBC’s Panorama programme on Monday night.

Mrs Mugford’s camera filmed 19 hours of care during five days.

While it showed some good care, other instances fell below what the family expected.

The showed that on one occasion Mrs Heslop, who was in her 80s, was left for hours in her bed in a wet nightie and there was a lack of adequate support for a painful leg when she was being moved.

Four Seasons Health Care, the company which owns Avonmead, said it had since sacked five people, disciplined six others and repeatedly and sincerely apologised to the family.

Mrs Mugford took her mother out of Avonmead to live with her in Trowbridge. She died four months later.

Four Seasons Health Care said in a statement: “We were shocked and concerned by the poor care that was given to Mrs Heslop while she was a resident at Avonmead Care Home.

“We participated in a comprehensive investigation in 2012 led by Wiltshire Social Services safeguarding team that concluded there was no deliberate mistreatment but, clearly, the care provided by some of our staff fell well below the required standard.

“It did not comply with our policies and procedures and was contrary to our ethos and training.

“As Panorama acknowledged, the covert filming also recorded numerous instances of good care.

“The company response was robust and the relevant staff are no longer employed by us; a new management team is in place in the home and it has undergone an improvement programme and is compliant with Care Quality Commission standards.

“Our senior managers met the family to explain the outcomes of the investigation and to apologise.”

Four Seasons said Mrs Heslop would cry out when staff were attending to essential care needs but sometimes when she was not being touched.

The statement said: “As a care provider with over 30,000 staff looking after 20,000 residents we will not accept that incidents of poor care are inevitable.

“We are commencing a research programme with a team at Hull University to identify the combination of circumstances in which poor care is more likely to occur, so that we may intervene to rectify them before a problem develops.”

Mrs Mugford wants care to be everyone’s business and said on the programme: “Don’t just visit your mum. In your mind’s eye visit everybody else too. Just keep an eye on them, because somebody needs to.”

The Care Quality Commission said Avonmead now meets all necessary standards.