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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Care Home Complaints:Scotland

According to the Edinburgh Evening news over 170 complaints have been upheld against care homes in the Lothians, Scotland, by inspectors from the Care Commission who discovered multiple failings in scores of residential facilities.
Problems included poor hygiene, rooms smelling of urine for weeks on end and residents sleeping on dirty and stained mattresses . Some residents were routinely receiving "hot" meals that had been allowed to go cold and were left to live in dirty and ripped clothes.

There were examples of staff shortages, badly-trained care workers and an absence of meaningful activities for residents.
The complaints involved around five per cent of the Lothians' 2256 care homes.
The information was discovered by the Evening News using Freedom of Information laws.
In less than three years 174 complaints have been upheld, wholly or in part, against nursing homes in the Lothians.
One complaint was where elderly residents were being forced to get up at 6am to get dressed and ready for breakfast at 8am in order to suit staff shifts. In another there were concerns about the "inappropriate" terms used by staff to describe residents, such as "padders" and "hoisters" used to describe those who were incontinent or needed extra help to move around.
The inspectors also criticised inadequate communication with residents and their families in some homes.

An investigation into the death of 92-year-old resident Isabella McGregor from Ashley Court Nursing Home in Morningsiden February last year found unacceptable practices in 17 areas of basic care provided to often extremely frail residents. Inspectors found residents dishevelled and in a poor state of dress and restraint methods being used inappropriately on elderly residents.
The Care Commission ordered the home to take "urgent" action to improve or face losing registration and the home reportedly complied with all aspects of the improvement notice issued by the commission.
At Braid Hills Nursing Centre in Liberton - now under new ownership - inspectors found staff speaking of residents using inappropriate language. This included calling residents who were bed-ridden as "24seveners".
The statistics from the Lothians mirror a national trend where the number of complaints against Scotland's care homes and nurseries has increased by more than a quarter in the past year.

A number of questions arise from this but a key question is why it requires a Freedom of Information action to reveal this sort of information. Surely the results of complaints investigations should be released routinely perhaps as part of the Care Commissions reporting process?