South Lanarkshire Council inquiry into care contract company

A Scottish council has launched an investigation into the care of 400 elderly people as a result of a TV documentary to be aired tonight which raises “serious and deeply concerning allegations”, according to the authority.

The BBC Panorama programme, Britain’s Homecare Scandal, highlights shocking failings in home care services for elderly people in South Lanarkshire.

The programme shows that elderly clients are promised visits which never take place, while 30-minute visits can be cut short to as little as three minutes as staff rush to their next appointment. Confidential care plans are shown left crumpled in the boot of a company vehicle.

The company involved, Domiciliary Care (Scotland) (DCS) was previously run by its founder “Lady” Mary Beattie. The programme says it can find no evidence that she is entitled to the appellation and questions the fact that someone adopting a false status would not be picked up by regulators.

However, Beattie has recently resigned from the company, which was bought over in September 2008 by Choices Care, which has acknowledged poor standards of care and pledged to address the problems. DCS is now under investigation by both the council and Scotland’s Care Commission.

However, The Herald has learned that concerns about the company date back to at least April 2007. In fact, the Care Commission upheld a total of 11 complaints against DCS between April 2007 and December 2008.

These cover issues such as failure to deliver contracted visits, wide variations in the time at which promised calls take place, and a lack of care plans. Some clients and their families also complained about an ever-changing roster of carers.

The contract for home care for the elderly in three parts of South Lanarkshire was awarded in 2007, and decided partly by an “e-auction”. The government’s champion for elderly people, Joan Bakewell, criticised the tendering process carried out by the council as “truly immoral” and “scandalous”.

Using hidden cameras, reporters recorded visits by DCS to the house of Andrew Wilson, 78, of East Kilbride, who is hard of hearing, blind in one eye and unable to walk. In the course of three weeks, instead of the hot meals, he is given sandwiches, toast that he could not eat, cold spaghetti and 36 bags of Quavers.

In other scenes he is washed intimately by a carer while she talks about other clients on the phone to her bosses.

Another client, a terminally ill man in constant pain, is shown being lifted and changed by two carers – including the BBC’s undercover reporter – who have not been trained to help him. Other carers are shown to be under huge pressure to cut short visits to cram more in.

Harry Stevenson, the council’s executive director of social work, said every service user had been visited, and many were happy with the service provided by DCS.

He said: “We don’t think what was filmed is representative of the quality of care provided overall. Nevertheless, we take this very seriously, and we demand high standards and expect services to be delivered to the agreed standards.”

Mr Stevenson said the internal investigation would report to the council’s Social Work committee in June, but he said cost had not been the only criteria in awarding the contract. The council claims it is now paying more per hour for home care than before.

Marcia Ramsay, director of adult services at the Care Commission, said: “DCS has accepted responsibility for most of the issues raised and has committed to making improvements.

“We always work with service providers to ensure improvements are made. Where improvements are not achieved, we can move to enforcement action – which we have done this week with the issue of an Improvement Notice against DCS.

“To simply close down a service can have a shattering effect on people who rely on the care. In this case, to close down DCS would directly affect 350 people.”

Bob Maclean, chief executive of Choices Care, said: “The standards we have uncovered are certainly not the standards I would expect and have already within Choices Care”. He added the company was working to improve standards in South Lanarkshire and was investing £250,000 in an electronic staff management system.