Grandmother ‘sexually abused’ in city care home family had concerns about

AVULNERABLE Birmingham grandmother was allegedly sexually abused at an inadequate care home, where she was moved against her family’s wishes.

Dorothy Close was taken to Ivy House Care Home in West Heath because council and NHS hospital staff wanted to free up her hospital bed.

The 90-year-old, who suffered with Parkinson’s disease, had been in hospital for four months following a fall on December 27, 2015.

But within days of moving in to the home – now renamed and under new ownership – she told her granddaughter she had been abused.

Police were called in to investigate but there was not enough evidence to go to court, and the NHS trust involved called off its own probe.

Mrs Close has since died. Her daughter, who brought the complaint, also passed away during the investigation.

As Mrs Close lay in hospital, her family was told that it was not suitable for her to return to living inde

pendently, and she would need to go into a residential care home.

But the care home found for her – Ivy House – had been consistently rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Her family objected to the move because they were seriously concerned for her safety.

They say they were warned that if they did not consent within 24 hours, she would be ‘evicted’ from her hospital bed and moved without their agreement.

Now, Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust have apologised to Mrs Close’s family after an investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

“Nan actually ended up being in hospital until the April,” Mrs Close’s granddaughter Holly Close said.

“It was actually decided in the February that she wasn’t going to be well enough to go home, and it was documented in her notes that she needed 24-hour care.”

Birmingham City Council told Holly and her mother that there was a bed available in Ivy House, which was known to be delivering poor care following CQC inspections.

“At the time, Birmingham City Council was commissioning that home as somewhere that would provide care for people on a short-term basis,” Holly added.

“My mum and I were very, very unhappy with the plan to send her there. We did put in quite a lot of informal complaints and finally the formal complaint that has gone through the Ombudsman now.

“We did not want her to go there. We read the CQC reports, in which the home was consistently rated poor.

“But we were basically told that

if we didn’t choose, if we didn’t consent for Nan to go into that home, then the eviction policy of the hospital would be invoked.

“Nan would be discharged without our consent to the next available bed, which could be anywhere within the Birmingham border, and could be of any CQC rating.”

But after just a few days at Ivy House, Holly says her grandmother told her she had been sexually assaulted by a member of staff.

“She was only there for 11 days in total,” she added. “About four of five days after she was admitted, she became increasingly distressed.

“She disclosed to me that she had been sexually abused by a male member of staff who was providing personal care to her.”

Holly says she believes her grandmother was telling the truth about what happened.

“She never swore,” she said. “She never said a bad word. She would never mention anything sexual – that was not the done thing.

“And I have never seen her so distressed, so embarrassed, to have to tell me what had happened to her.”

Holly claims that after they reported the incident, little was done by the care home or the council.

“In the immediacy, absolutely nothing happened,” she said. “We informed the out of hours social work team and they advised the care home to suspend the staff.

“What they actually did was move them onto another unit within the same home so they didn’t have contact with my Nan.

“I actually found when I went to visit my Nan the following day that the same members of staff were actually on duty with her.

“The police were involved and they carried out a formal investigation, but because at that point there was no physical evidence, it could not be proven that something had happened.

“There wasn’t enough evidence for it to go to court, and social services took that to mean that they could drop their safeguarding investigation completely.”

The care home involved is now under new management, and has been rated ‘good’ by the CQC. Birmingham City Council no longer commission providers with an ‘inadequate’ rating.

We did not want her to go there. We read the CQC reports, in which the home was consistently rated poor

Granddaughter