Care homes that PUNISH families who dare complain
A husband banned from seeing his wife for 3 weeks. An elderly mum evicted. Exposed, the growing scandal of...
GEORGE Roussell was understandably distraught the day his beloved wife Brenda went into a care home. The pair had never spent a night apart during their blissfully happy 50-year marriage and George, a former driving instructor, felt racked with guilt that he was no longer able to care for ‘the love of his life’.
But, after taking advice from health professionals, he agreed that Brenda, who was 67 and suffering from multiple sclerosis, would be better off in a nursing home. George comforted himself with the knowledge that he had not made the decision lightly and made a promise: he would visit her twice a day — every day — for the rest of her life.
Yet he was prevented from honouring the pledge in the most upsetting possible way. up until three weeks before her death last year, at the age of 75, George was effectively banned from his wife’s bedside, only allowed to see her in chaperoned visits, a situation which was incredibly difficult for both of them.
The reason? George, 77, says it was because he dared to complain about how poorly she was being treated — being force-fed, left in uncomfortable positions for hours on end, and not given sufficient water. The care home, however, maintains it was because of George’s aggressive behaviour towards staff.
Nevertheless, the last few years of Brenda’s life were most certainly blighted, and George’s complaints about how his wife was being cared for were almost certainly the trigger.
And far from being an isolated case, stories such as these — of relatives feeling they are being ‘sanctioned’ for speaking out — are now so widespread, the industry regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), last month saw fit to issue new guidelines advising care homes not to punish relatives who complain.
George, who now lives alone in a flat in Eltham, South-East London, is still raw and bitter from the experience: ‘Those are days I can never get back. It’s monstrous, barbaric.’
Official figures on relatives being evicted or banned from visiting loved ones do not exist, but campaigners say there are hundreds of cases. The care home industry is worth around £14.3 billion, and predominantly run by private companies. As a result, homes can decide who can and cannot visit, as well as having the power to evict residents without the need for any consultation or notice. Although homes are now mainly run by the private sector, the majority of residents have their care paid for by the taxpayer.
Issuing the new guidelines, Andrea Sutcliffe, the CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care, said: ‘Care homes are people’s homes. They, their family and friends should not live in fear of being penalised for raising concerns.’
When Brenda first moved in to the Sidcup Nursing and Residential Centre, in South East London, in May 2007, everything seemed to be going well. George would visit every morning and afternoon, and took Brenda out for a stroll in the wheelchair, bringing comfort to them both.
It still pains George to speak about the woman he married six months after meeting at a friend’s wedding. ‘She was the love of my life, my best friend. We travelled the world together and had so many wonderful times.’
Owned by private health provider Bupa, George paid £300 per month towards the £800-a-week cost of his wife’s care (the rest was paid by the local authority).
BuT before long, he became concerned as a number of managers kept leaving during the seven years his wife was there. Then he started to notice other things, too . . . George started keeping a diary of complaints, which included staff shortages, buzzers not being answered, and not having sufficient access to water — all of which he raised with the staff.
One incident had him so incensed, he actually called the police. ‘Brenda had difficulty swallowing and was only to be fed with a teaspoon.
‘But I saw a member of staff feeding a large spoonful of scrambled egg into her mouth. I honestly thought she’d choke. Yet the police told me they couldn’t take my complaint further as there was no CCTV in the home,’ says George, disgusted. The home, however, says all of his concerns were independently investigated and it was vindicated.
A few days after the incident, George was shocked to learn Brenda had been issued with an eviction notice. She was to find another care home with immediate effect. Only when he argued she was too ill to be moved (she was receiving end-of-life palliative care), was the decision changed to ban George instead.
He was distraught. Initially he was prohibited from entering the home for three weeks, and then allowed back, just three times a week, for two hours each time, and in the presence of a chaperone.
‘Brenda used to beg me not to go but I had no choice. No one should ever have to go through what we did,’ says George.
Bupa insists Brenda was well cared for and what happened was a result of her husband’s ‘serious, damaging and unfair attacks’ on staff, which resulted in some even leaving because of his ‘aggressive behaviour’, something which George vehemently denies, insisting all he ever did was complain.
A spokesman said: ‘In January 2014 we reluctantly suggested Mrs Rousell be moved to another home as we could not meet Mr Rousell’s continued demands. Mr Rousell did not wish her to be moved so we worked with adult social services to arrange accompanied visits. This step was taken to enable his visits to continue while protecting the interests of the staff and other residents.
‘We believe that decisions made by our management team have been well-intentioned, carefully considered and appropriate.’
Mercifully, the restrictions were lifted in the final three weeks of Brenda’s life and George stayed by her bedside constantly. But this, he feels, does not make up for all the hours and days they lost.
While both George and the care home will never agree on who should shoulder the responsibility for this upsetting case, campaign group Compassion in Care is contacted by around 60 families a year with similar stories.
Founder, Eileen Chubb, a former care worker, says: ‘Families often only have to raise one thing before they are seen as a problem by staff and denied seeing loved ones.
‘There is a climate of fear where the care home has all the power. What they say seems to be taken at face value by the authorities.’
She believes care homes should be forced to publish figures showing visiting restrictions and eviction notices served.
George goes a step further: he believes eviction notices are tools used by care homes to stifle genuine complaints and he does not believe anything will change until such notices are properly controlled, if not outlawed entirely.
In Somerset, Paul Doolan has an equally upsetting tale of being banned from visiting the care home of his father, Terry, after he made a series of complaints.
Terry, a former salesman who had prostate cancer, was registered blind and used a wheelchair, went into £400-a-week Granada House, Weston-super-Mare in 2010. Though the home maintains it always followed guidelines, Paul says he made a string of complaints about issues including his father’s hearing aids being poorly maintained.
‘Whenever I went to visit, the first 20 minutes were spent fixing his aids. I had lived with and cared for my father since 2008 and knew they weren’t being looked after properly.
‘As he was blind, it was very isolating for him. When I wasn’t there, I was concerned he would be sat in total silence.’
PAuL, 66, a former local authority legal officer, also complained about staff shortages, his father not being taken to the doctors for his cancer medication, his catheter not being changed regularly, and lack of stimulation in the home.
He complained to the council but, as it was paying for his father’s fees, it said it was difficult to find him another home.
One day in the summer of 2012, he again made a complaint after he claims his father was being fed a meal which hadn’t been cut up into small enough pieces for him to swallow safely.
Within days, he received an email saying he was to ‘cease visits with immediate effect . . . in view of recent events’. It also accused him of unreasonable behaviour towards staff.
‘I panicked and thought I would never be able to see Dad again. It was heartbreaking,’ he says.
Three weeks later, he received a letter saying he could see his father at the local Conservative Club at 1pm each Friday for two hours, in the presence of a chaperone. ‘I think it was revenge because I had complained. It was incredibly distressing.’
This farcical situation continued until his father was moved to a new home in February 2013. He died a few weeks later.
Paul adds: ‘I still feel angry because they deprived me of seeing him. My dad was a sociable man, who didn’t like upsetting anyone.’ In response to Paul’s allegations, a spokesman for Granada House said: ‘I can confirm the home followed all regulations set by the CQC and all guidelines set by our local authority.’
However, it seems homes may be quick to take action when a family complains.
Twins Mervyn and Angela Eastman, 67, say their mother was asked to leave her Essex nursing home after they lodged a single complaint. Careena, 86, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, moved into £800-a-week Romford Nursing Centre in July 2013.
Although the family said they had some concerns during her stay (such as a wound on her leg not being treated properly), they were largely happy until a decision to merge their mother’s unit with another one a year later. The twins sent an email in September 2014 to management complaining they had not been consulted and their mother was distressed as the new residents, who also suffered from dementia, were behaving aggressively. Within 48 hours, they received an email saying the centre had ‘thoroughly investigated their complaint’ but could no longer deal with the family or Careena’s needs and gave her 28 days to quit. Father-of-two Mervyn, a former director of social services in North London, says: ‘We were flabbergasted by this disproportionate response. We had to scramble to find another home.’ Angela, a secretary, had cared for and lived with her mother for 20 years after she suffered a stroke, aged 62. She says: ‘On the day they merged the units she was really upset as there were lots of strange people and it was pandemonium. We’d been given no notice. I would’ve taken her out for the day if we’d known.’ Careena, who used to run a special care unit for young adults while raising Angela and Mervyn as a single mother, is now settled in another home but it has made her children wary of complaining. A spokesman for the home, which was rated ‘Good’ by the CQC in its last two inspections, said: ‘Our duty of care under the Health and Social Care Act is to ensure we are always able to meet individuals’ needs, and where we cannot, we are compelled to make unenviable and difficult decisions to ensure the individual is supported to relocate to a service where their needs can be met.’
Solicitor Jemma Garside says she is coming across an increasing number of similar cases and urges banned families to raise a safeguarding alert under the Care Act, as ‘preventing a resident from having contact with family could amount to emotional abuse’.
Former model and TV personality Jayne Connery, 49, who works as a private investigator, knows only too well the power wielded by care homes. Her mother Ellen, 80, who suffers from dementia, has been evicted from two homes, following complaints from her daughter.
Jayne now cares for her mother at home in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, and is campaigning for CCTV to be installed in communal areas of all care homes.
During her time in a string of care homes, Jayne says her mother was left in soiled bed linen, was left alone on her bed with the lights out (even though she is terrified of the dark), and was left for hours without a drink.
ON ONE occasion a staff member phoned her to say they had witnessed her mother being manhandled by three female carers. The police said there was not enough evidence to investigate.
‘I even resorted to installing a CCTV camera in her room. I was quite naive and placed my trust in the care system. I would never do so again. I know she wouldn’t be here if I had left her in a home.’
There have certainly been some homes were families concerned have been fully justified.
Former parking attendant Jean Halfpenny, 77, was one of 19 residents to die in ‘unexplained’ circumstances at the now-defunct Southern Cross-run £3,500-a-month Orchid View care home in West Sussex. Her family, who had made a series of complaints, had their visiting rights restricted to just a few hours in the afternoon in the months before she died, in May 2013.
An inquest heard how the old lady was left hungry and thirsty. Once a social worker who visited in 2010 found her naked in bed, crying and complaining how she was cold.
The coroner eventually ruled ‘institutionalised abuse’ had led to the deaths of five residents, before the company’s collapse in 2011.
Mrs Halfpenny’s daughter, Linzi, 46, an English tutor, says: ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide, you don’t limit visits. The way Britain’s elderly are treated is a national disgrace.
‘unless something fundamentally changes there will be more cases like my mother’s and other families may be too scared of speaking out in case their parents, husbands or wives are evicted or they are stopped from seeing them.’
I can never get back those days when I couldn’t see Brenda. What they did is monstrous... barbaric