Cornwall care agency apologises after woman left without food and medication for three days

A care company in Cornwall has apologised and paid compensation to a woman with dementia after cancelling her care package, meaning she was left without meals and medication for three days.

Proper Care (Cornwall) Ltd, based in Helston, was found to be at fault for the way in which staff terminated the care contract, after payment was left outstanding.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) upheld a complaint made against the agency, and ordered it to apologise and pay the woman and her daughter £300.

The LGSCO said that the agency was asked to provide care for the woman, Mrs Y, by a community psychiatric nurse who visited her. This was needed as Mrs Y’s daughter, identified as Mrs X, lived some distance away.

Mrs X was supposed to pay for the care provided to her mother and Proper Care (Cornwall) contacted her by phone on November 24 to make arrangements.

The agency told Mrs X it would sort the paperwork for the care package when she was next in the area in January.

Staff said the agency's usual procedure was to provide a written contract ahead of care starting but said that this had not happened in this case as they wanted to “help the family”. 

When payment was left outstanding for some of the care, the agency says it contacted Mrs X on February 9 and said that if she did not settle the invoices, then care would end on February 11.

The agency says Mrs X did not notify them of any intention to pay, so staff contacted the community psychiatric nurse to tell her that care would be stopping.

However, the care agency's normal practice is to provide two weeks' notice of the termination of care.

"Without a contract, there is no way Mrs X would have been aware of this", the LGSCO report says.

But Mrs X says she did not know about the care ending, and was told late on the Monday by a medical professional that the care had stopped on the Friday.

The LGSCO said that the company was at fault as it had not provided Mrs X with a written contract.

The ombudsman said: “The care agency has offered Mrs X £5 compensation. This is a very low amount, considering that Mrs Y was without care for three days. She was not checked on for three days to ensure she had meals or medication.

“The care agency knew she was vulnerable and that it was unlikely new carers could be sourced that quickly.

Mrs X has since paid the invoice in full after the care agency employed debt collectors.

Proper Care (Cornwall) apologised to Mrs X and paid £300 in compensation for the "distress and inconvenience" caused.

David Carmichael, owner of Proper Care (Cornwall) apologised, but claimed it had been difficult to provide a contract to Mrs X as she did not visit her mother during the time the agency was providing care.

He said: “I emailed the daughter a contract and we realised that the bills were not being paid. When we sent her the bills, she quibbled that the staff were not with her mother for the full length of time.

He added that Mrs X did not pay any bills and would also complain that staff were not spending the right length of time at Mrs Y's house.

Mr Carmichael added: “Eventually we said we can’t carry on like this, we have to pay our staff and she was not paying us. We invoiced her for the hours we were commissioned for but she still wasn’t having it.”

The agency owner said that he did not consider that Mrs X’s mother was at risk and said that she continued to receive support from the community mental health team.

He added that due to covid restrictions in place at the time Mrs X did not visit her mother and so he was unable to give her a physical contract.

Credit: Richard Whitehouse, Local Democracy Reporter