Care homes from HELL
Fees of up to £900 a week...but residents are treated ‘just like animals’
PENSIONERS are being ‘treated like animals’ in failing care homes, with elderly residents in the most shocking examples left filthy, starving, dehydrated and bored.
A Scottish Mail on Sunday investigation found that over the past year some residents were living in agony for weeks because they were not given pain relief medication.
Some had to use dirty toothbrushes and hairbrushes, or were fed out-ofdate food, while others were left sitting for hours in soiled clothing or abandoned in foul-smelling rooms with nothing to do but sleep in chairs all day.
Some pensioners suffered significant weight loss from a lack of nutrition and were left unattended for so long that they fell over trying to move themselves.
Reports published by the Care Inspectorate – Scotland’s watchdog for care homes in the private and public sector – show that although the vast majority offer good or even outstanding care for residents, a worrying number are still failing to meet acceptable standards.
Homes are judged according to four standards: care, environment, staffing and leadership. Grades run from unsatisfactory, then weak, through to adequate, good, very good and excellent.
Of Scotland’s 850 care homes for the elderly, where fees range from £470-£900 a week, 13 are currently rated ‘weak’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ in at least one of the two key categories of care and environment.
Last night, Scottish Conservative public health spokesman Annie Wells said: ‘The details set out here are beyond unacceptable.
‘Families trust care homes to look after their loved ones to the highest standard possible. Instead, in these instances, vulnerable people are being treated like animals.
‘When such failings are found, councils need to step in and to take severe action against these operators.’
The two worst homes were Fairfield Care Home in Inverness and Drumpellier Lodge in Bargeddie, North Lanarkshire, both of which received the lowest grade of ‘unsatisfactory’ in all four criteria. Inspec-
tors who visited Fairfield – which was investigated earlier this year after five elderly residents died in one week – described it as untidy, dirty and cluttered with stained, worn carpets, and reported a foul smell coming from chair cushions.
They also found soiled laundry on the floor and warned that residents were at risk of malnutrition and dehydration.
In fact, the care standards were so poor that NHS Highland has barred the home, owned by Fairfield Care Home Ltd, from accepting new residents until it is ‘fully satisfied the quality of service does not affect the care and support provided at the home’.
Meanwhile at Drumpellier Lodge, owned by Clancare Ltd, inspectors found residents sitting alone and distressed in an unsupervised lounge, with many having nothing to do but sleep in their chairs all day because of a lack of stimulation or activities.
The inspectors also found several residents had lost weight, that the pantry areas were dirty and that there were out-of-date dried foodstuffs in the kitchen cupboards, as well as out-of-date first aid kits.
Last night, a spokesman for Age Scotland said: ‘The vast majority of care home provision in Scotland is good, very good or excellent. But being an exception will be of little comfort to residents and their families who receive poor or unacceptable levels of support. It is intolerable and wholly unnecessary to allow unclean or unsafe environments, or residents’ basic needs not catered for, and scarcely better to allow residents simply to live tedious or uneventful existences.’
Fidra House in North Berwick, East Lothian, which is owned by Randolph Hill Care Homes, received a ‘weak’ grading for quality of care, and inspectors found that an elderly woman had not received pain relief for almost three weeks – because staff had not asked the GP to consider alternative ways of relieving her pain when she was unable to take pills.
Other residents had also not received their medication because staff failed to order it on time.
One resident said: ‘I’m not a patient, I’m a prisoner.’
At Drummohr Nursing Home in Musselburgh, East Lothian – owned by HC-One Ltd – the quality of care was most recently graded as being ‘weak’.
Grooming items such as toothbrushes and hairbrushes were not always clean, residents’ clothes were not cared for properly, beds were badly made, and shower chairs and toilet seats were in ‘poor condition’. One staff member admitted: ‘I feel like crying sometimes.’
Two other care homes owned by HC-One, which brands itself ‘the kind care company’, received ‘unsatisfactory’ or ‘weak’ grades – Springfield Bank Nursing Home, Midlothian, and Barleystone care home in Falkirk, Stirlingshire.
A spokesman for HC-One said: ‘Nothing is more important to us than the health, safety and wellbeing of the people we support.
‘We were disappointed by the Care Inspectorate’s findings from their inspections over the past year and we take all feedback from the regulator very seriously.
‘Since the inspections, these homes all have new managers in place and have implemented robust action plans.’
Ingrid Neville, director of Nursing at Randolph Hill Nursing Homes Group, said: ‘We are working intensively with the Care Inspectorate to address the concerns identified at Fidra House.’
Clancare did not respond to our request for a comment.
A spokesman for the Care Inspectorate said: ‘Everyone in Scotland has the right to safe, compassionate, good quality care which meets their needs and respects their rights.
‘We inspect all care homes for older people in Scotland, mostly unannounced, to ensure that the care they provide is of a standard that people have a right to expect.
‘However, where there are concerns, we do not hesitate to act and we work closely with services and support them to improve.’
Fairfield Care Home did not respond to a request for comment.
‘I am not a patient, I’m a prisoner’