Bupa fined £3m over Legionnaire’s death
A PRIVATE care home that caused the death of an 86-year- old grandfather by allowing Legionnaire’s disease to flourish in its hot water system was fined a record £3million yesterday.
Kenneth Ibbetson had been living in the £1,000-a-week Bupa home for just three months when he caught the disease. The health care giant admitted breaching health and safety rules during a court hearing that was told a tap in his room at Hutton Village near Brentwood, Essex, had ten times the safety levels.
The company did not monitor the water system or flush it out, despite warnings dating back three years before Mr Ibbetson’s death in 2015. Training was insufficient, the manager complained of not having enough time and records were falsified by a former caretaker to suggest safety checks had been carried out.
Judge Emma Peters imposed the fine as she criticised Bupa’s ‘significant and serious’ failings.
‘The family were choosing the right place that was safe,’ she said. ‘If they had known the problems they would never have gone there. It fell short of the standards over a long period of time and the failings led to Mr Ibbetson’s death.’
Other Bupa homes had suffered the same problems, although these had been resolved, the judge added. Mr Ibbetson’s family have begun a civil case for compensation against Bupa, which runs 130 care homes in the UK.
His daughter, Caroline Peters, 54, said they were still ‘angry and bitter’ and had still not received an apology from Bupa. In a victim impact statement heard earlier at Ipswich Crown Court she said her father ‘suffered a very aggressive, violent, painful and distressing death’.
The disease is a severe lung infection caused by inhaling droplets of water containing the legionella bacteria.
Joan Elliott, managing director for Bupa Care Services, apologised to the family and said: ‘We’ve made a number of improvements across all of our care homes to make sure colleagues’ training is kept up to date.’