Care home apologises to families over string of failures - including poor nutrition and cleaning

A Gloucestershire care provider has apologised and changed its management after complaints over poor record keeping, cleaning, food provision and data breaches against them were upheld.

Two separate complaints lodged with the Local Governent and Social Care Ombudsman against Lilian Faithfull Care were upheld on 27 June.

The first of the complaints referred to the standard of care a woman’s late mother received while a resident at Astell House Care Home in Cheltenham.

The woman complained that her mother had experienced poor general care at the home including inadequate nutrition and dietary care. She explained how her mother had lost a significant amount of weight while she was a resident there and had ten falls during her stay.

It was also claimed that the care home did not carry out an initial three-month care review with the family as promised in the care home documentation. Additionally, the woman said that record keeping at Astell House was poor and her mother suffered from poor pain management.

In the complaint, the woman said that she and her family had experienced sever distress and frustration due to the care her mother received at the home, but Lilian Faithfull Care had not provided an adequate response.

The care provider agreed to apologise to the women in question, saying that lessons had been learned and actions would be taken to address the issues she brought forward.

The care home also agreed to review the accuracy of its overall record keeping and consider how to streamline the process within 12 weeks. Lilian Faithfull Care will also have to supply the ombudsman with evidence of their new processes.

A second, separate complaint at another Lilian Faithfull care home in Stroud was also upheld on 27 June.

A woman who wanted to remain anonymous complained on behalf of her dead mother that the care provider had failed to carry out a safeguarding investigation.

Her complaint also said it had failed to properly deal with data breaches at Resthaven Nursing Home in Pitchcombe near Stroud. She said this caused her mother unnecessary anxiety and discomfort during the last few months of her life.

She said that staff members at the home accessed her mother's iPad and it was alleged that they could have deleted some emails. However, the care provider maintains that staff did this with the woman's express permission in order to find an email.

Lilian Faithful provided a note, handwritten by the mother, asking that her daughter in Australia be informed of her death.

In this case, the ombudsman found that the complaint had been correctly dealt with by Lilian Faithfull Care.

It read: "The Ombudsman must consider the injustice caused as a result of any alleged fault and must use public money carefully.

“In this case, the complainant has died which means we are unable to provide any personal remedy. I am also not persuaded that any investigation I could now carry out would provide different evidence about who deleted the emails and so a different outcome could not be achieved."

The care home accepted fault in respect to cleaning issues, food provision and data breaches in relation to the complaint. The Chief Executive of the organisation apologised to the daughter and detailed actions that he had implemented to ensure that similar faults do not happen again.

A spokesperson for Lilian Faitfull said they have apologised to the families and the ombudsman is satisfied with the actions they have undertaken.

These include a change of management and an introduction of extra nursing staff and improving record systems.

“Lilian Faithfull cares for 300 residents and day care guests across our six homes and we are very proud of the personalised care that we have provided over the past 78 years,” they said.

“Providing residential care services is very complex and unfortunately we don’t always get everything right.

“Both of these cases happened some time ago and since then we have worked hard to learn lessons and put remedies in place to ensure that they do not happen again.

“We have apologised to the families and the Ombudsman is satisfied with our actions which include a change of management and introduction of additional nursing staff and the replacement of paper records with digital care and medication systems which record more detailed information on our residents in real time.”