Family in call for care home probe
Again and again, the government vowed to end the drugging of dementia victims. But this family’s ordeal reveals the horrifying truth
THE FAMILY of an 9-year-old greatgreat-grandmother who died in a nursing home after moving from another closed by inspectors has called for an investigation into standards of care for the elderly.
Williamina Wight, who passed away in April, spent nearly two years at the Pentland Hill home in Edinburgh after her previous residence, the Elsie Inglis care home, closed after a damning inspection report and a police investigation into a resident’s death.
The Bupa-run Pentland Hill has now been closed to new admissions following a critical Care Inspectorate report in August and police are now investigating four deaths at the Corstorphine facility.
Mrs Wight’s daughter Marion Wilton, 67, said: ‘She was in Elsie Inglis, so after that we thought the Bupa home would be a good one.
‘It was OK when she first went in there and we had no qualms. But it deteriorated and I think it became just the same as Elsie Inglis.
‘We would often complain once or twice a week. I’ve still got the notes of all the different things.’
Mrs Wilton’s husband Ronald, 2, said: ‘We were never given a cause of death. We felt fobbed off. It’s an absolute scandal. There needs to be an investigation.’
Bupa said it was ‘surprised’ to hear the family was unhappy and had no records of complaints about general care or nutrition.
Vivienne Birch, director of partnerships with Bupa Care Services, said: ‘We actively promote and create a culture to protect residents, where people are encouraged to feel confident to report any concerns.’
But Mr Wilton said: ‘They had no records because they refused to take minutes. It was hopeless. An investigation might gee these places up.’
use sedation — for the benefit of the staff, not the patient.’
Part of the problem is that all too often care homes are understaffed, with l owpaid, poorlytrained workers who don’t have enough time to spend with their patients.
And the reason for this, said Mr Weatherhead, is simple. ‘In a small core of homes it is not about caring, it is about profits.’
As Eileen Chubb knows only too well.
The 54yearold, from Bromley in Kent, was so horrified by what she witnessed while working in a care home for three years that she resigned and set up the campaign group Compassion In Care. She says: ‘Some homes don’t want staff who care. They just want people who turn a blind eye.
‘There are many ways you can work the system to get medication to keep patients quiet. You can phone a GP and say your patient is violent. The doctor will prescribe the drugs; if one patient dies, you can quietly stockpile their drugs to use on someone else.’
And very often — as in the case of Gladys Burr’s family — the relatives are the last to know.
‘ Most f a mili e s don’t f ul l y understand what medication their relative is taking, and they are not properly told,’ Mrs Chubb says. But most of the chemical coshrelated calls to her helpline — which average about five to seven a week — come not from relatives, but from decent nursing home staff who are too frightened about losing their jobs to complain publicly about the abuse they witness.
Instead, they pass on their fears anonymously to Mrs Chubb, who will go into the institution posing as someone seeking a home for their relative. She then compiles reports on her findings and passes information to the watchdog body the Care Quality Commission.
What she has seen in her undercover visits l eaves her deeply sceptical about government claims to have drastically reduced the chemical cosh problem.
‘They haven’t put it right. It’s as bad as i t has always been,’ she insists.
Her observations are backed up by academic research.
Last year, a University of East Anglia report found that government figures had underestimated the true level of antipsychotic use in the Medway towns area of Kent by about 45 per cent.
SIMILARLY, Manchester University academics found that j ust over a quarter of 994 dementia patients surveyed in the NorthWest were on antipsychotics, and on average had been taking them for nearly two years — despite expert recommendations that they should be used for a maximum of three months.
This is despite evidence that as well as antipsychotics tripling the risk of strokes in dementia patients, they also double the risk of death.
Mr Weatherhead says: ‘It’s often a downward spiral once t hese medications are prescribed. If someone is drowsy and unsteady on their feet because they have been oversedated, the risk of a fall is huge. It is a disaster waiting to happen.’
It is a disaster that did happen to Gladys Burr.
Noting her extraordinary tally of 54 falls in the short time she was at the home, the Care Inspectorate concluded: ‘The risk of falling was exacerbated by increased medication. This was not taken i nto account by nursing staff.’ Care UK, which runs Mowat Court, said that after Gladys’s death it suspended the manager Pamela Tavendale and referred her to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which l ast December issued an interim order suspending her from nursing for 18 months while the allegations against her are investigated.
Meanwhile, Mrs Burr’s family are left with such distressing memories that even looking through photographs of their mother before her decline is almost too painful to bear.
‘I think about Mum every single day,’ says Sandra. ‘I hope no one else has to endure this. But the horrifying thing is that somewhere out there it is probably still happening.’