FAMILY TO SUE OVER TRAGEDY
THE family of a couple who died of Covid are preparing the UK’S first legal claim against a care home over the virus.
Norman and Shirley Milne, both 81, passed away eight days apart.
Relatives had installed a camera in Norman’s room at Sherrell House Care Home in Essex, which they say shows staff tending him without basic protective gear like masks and gloves.
Son Steve Milne, 45, said: “Last week we had a double funeral for my parents. I feel numb, I don’t think it’s properly hit me yet.
“I feel guilty because we put them in the home but we feel like the way they were cared for was either naive or negligent.”
He has called in human rights lawyers and instructed them to fight for answers over the couple’s treatment. They are among an estimated 11,600 care home residents to die from the virus – a quarter of the national toll. Ministers have been blasted for failing to provide staff with testing and PPE – and their policy of releasing patients with the virus into care homes.
Steve said: “The Government were slow to act and the message that was sent out from the start was that older people in care homes were expendable.”
Norman and Shirley, who had dementia, moved to the care home in Chigwell last year from their house in nearby Buckhurst Hill.
They had been married for 58 years and had six grandchildren.
Former nursery boss Shirley was admitted to Harlow Hospital on April 8 a few days after showing symptoms and passed away four days later.
Norman, a retired electrical technician, was admitted there on April 15 but a test turned out to be negative.
Despite medics’ warnings, he returned to the home.
There Steve says his dad was served with an eviction notice because he had raised concerns about his care.
The care home said it acted because there was a “breakdown in trust from the family”, they were receiving “persistent emails” and were aware of social media posts.
Hours after receiving the notice on April 17, Norman was rushed back to hospital. He died of Covid-19, sepsis and kidney failure three days later.
Steve claims that care home workers failed to use safe practices to protect his father from the virus despite his mother’s death days earlier.
The family had installed a camera in his room – with the consent of the home – prior to the lockdown because of previous concerns about his care.
The motion-detected camera enadozens bled relatives to watch live when anyone tended to Norman. They say they witnessed 63 incidents in 11 days where care home staff handled Norman without adequate PPE.
Steve claims they gave his dad oral medication without gloves – despite the fact he was awaiting the results of a virus test and was symptomatic.
Steve, a data analyst from Chingford, Northeast London, said: “They’ve admitted that they didn’t use PPE on one occasion, but we’ve got video footage of