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Mary Quigley |
Stripped of dignity during her last days
Shock report reveals care home staff treated pensioner aggressively, made her sit alone and washed her as she was on toilet
CONFIDENTIAL reports leaked to the Tribune expose how a pensioner spent the final days of her life being mistreated in one of Islington’s best-known care homes.
Inquiries, held behind closed doors by Islington social services and the borough’s Primary Care Trust, show how Mary Quigley, 78, was stripped of her dignity at St Anne’s, a 50-bed home in Durham Road, Finsbury Park.
In the last fortnight of her life she was washed only when she was handed a flannel while using a toilet. At meal times, she was given food she could hardly chew and dairy products, despite her natural intolerance to them.
Food charts were later revealed to have been falsified in a practice that social services chiefs admit needs “urgent” investigation.
In a long list of complaints, staff at St Anne’s – run by Anchor Homes, the country’s largest not-for-profit care provider – allegedly spoke to Mrs Quigley aggressively, made her sit on her own in the common room and played loud reggae music as residents tried to watch TV in the communal lounge.
Claims upheld by adjudicators ruling on complaints made by Mrs Quigley’s daughter, Denise McCormack, include a failure to provide her with all the medication she had been prescribed, failure to realise her condition was deteriorating and attempts to resuscitate her even though she had expressedly asked not to be in an emergency.
Her family said the public needed to know of the standard of care in Islington’s care homes, a subject which is rarely a popular topic for discussion.
Investigator Tony Hoolaghan, a locality director at Islington Primary Care Trust (PCT), ruled: “I do have significant concerns that there is a culture in St Anne’s of not treating residents and their carers with an appropriate level of dignity and respect.”
Mrs Quigley’s son Eugene said: “I hope nobody else’s family has to go through this.”
The shocking case, one of the worst in recent memory in Islington’s care homes, has led to a flurry of apologies and fresh calls for inspectors to be allowed to make unannounced spot checks at homes for the elderly at any time they see fit.
Social services chiefs are already under pressure to take action following revelations that emergency procedures at another home, Cheverton Lodge, in Upper Holloway, were not up to scratch,
Ms Quigley died at St Anne’s in March last year.
While her death has been investigated by a coroner and a natural causes verdict recorded, the care she received at St Anne’s has been revealed in reports being studied by social services and the PCT.
Mr Hoolaghan’s report said: “I would like to apologise for the way in which Mrs Quigley was treated leading up to her death and on the day of her death. I would also like to apologise to Mrs McCormack and Eugene Quigley about the way they were treated during the time their mother was at St Anne’s.
“I do not think the care received by Mrs Quigley during her short stay at St Anne’s was of a satisfactory standard and I think the manner and attitude of front-line staff and management towards both relatives was severely lacking.”
Mr Hoolaghan has upheld 10 complaints relating to failures at the home.
His confidential report said: “There appears to have been significant failings in St Anne’s management systems and that did not alert the kitchen staff to the fact that Mrs Quigley should have been on a special diet.”
It added: “I am extremely concerned that the investigating officer found evidence of tampering and falsification of records relating to Mrs Quigley’s nutritional status. I think this needs urgent further investigation.”
Mr Hoolaghan said he was shocked to find it was common practice to wash residents while they used the toilet.
“I think what occurred is an unacceptable practice,” he said in his report. “It does not accord the level of dignity and privacy that residents should expect to have.”
Eugene Quigley, who looked after his mother at her home in Tyndale Mansions in Angel before she was admitted to the care home, said: “There’s a culture in these types of places of saying that lessons will be learnt but they never seem to be. I hope they do take it on board and Islington Council also do surprise visits to check they’re compliant with the legal requirements.”
A separate 24-page confidential report on Mrs Quigley, compiled by assistant director of nursing Jennie Williams at the PCT, added: “The knowledge that Mrs Quigley’s food chart was falsified following her death undermines written statements and staff interviews relating to this aspect of Mrs Quigley’s care.”
Ms Williams’ report added that two of Mrs Quigley’s medicines were dosed at levels “below her prescribed rate”, although it was deemed unlikely to have exacerbated her respiratory problems.
A third investigative report by Janet Boorman, adult protection co-ordinator at Islington Council, listed a variety of concerns, such as “staff not calling the GP, not helping her [Mrs Quigley] to eat, soiled clothing not being changed, being left alone in a room – and shouting at her and ignoring her views”.
Labour group leader Councillor Catherine West said that as it stands councilors are not entitled to visit care homes unannounced.
She said: “Labour councillors would like to see councillors taking on more of an inspector’s role in visiting vulnerable patients. At the moment care organisations are more accountable to their company than to their residents.”
The revelations about Mrs Quigley’s treatment came on the heels of criticism by St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid about the lack of emergency care given to retired electrician John Jackson when he collapsed and died at Cheverton Lodge in February last year.
In a separate case, three care workers who encouraged disabled residents at the now-closed Medina Road residential care home in Holloway, run by Craegmoor plc, to abuse each other racially and physically were jailed for six months last year.
Cllr West added: “The more you outsource the more removed you are from it. The people who gain the contract often pay the staff very low wages so when basic problems occur care assistants don’t know what to do. There are some examples of decent contractors. You can get it [outsourcing] right but you have to have the mechanisms in place.”
Denise McCormack said: “People need to know this is what happens in nursing homes. We pay for the privilege of being left to die. St Anne’s is a place full of corridors with hardly any staff. Anchor Homes need to employ more staff with compassion.”
Islington Council pays £500 of the £650 weekly fee for a bed at St Anne’s. The rest is made up from residents’ pensions and relatives’ contributions.
Ms McCormack said: “Someone has to be making money out of it and I assure you it’s not me. In the eyes of the law an old person who dies isn’t worth a lot of money. Most importantly, something must be changed for the better of everybody.”
‘St Anne’s is different now’
WHEN Anchor Homes wrote to Mary Quigley’s daughter Denise McCormack last summer, it insisted an internal investigation had found no evidence to support the concerns about her mother’s care.
In a Tribune interview this week with Jane Ashcroft, the company’s managing director, it was a different story.
She said she accepted the findings of separate inquiries by Islington’s social services and Islington’s Primary Care Trust.
“This is an isolated incident over a year ago in one of our homes,” she said. “We look after about four-and-a-half thousand people in our care homes across England and win lots of awards and get lots of praise.
“The nurses responsible are not working at the home any more. We dealt with the staff in an appropriate manner. Disciplinary issues were raised and we’ve been through the appropriate processes.”
She added: “I’m not for one moment saying that one mistake is acceptable. We’ve apologised to Mrs Quigley’s family. We are very sorry that things weren’t as good as they should have been in every respect in her care. We have got a new senior team in the home.”
Ms Ashcroft said new recruits have been given extra training in treating patients and relatives with dignity and respect and the appropriate use of continence pads.
She added that a team of spot checkers reported to head office.
Ms Ashcroft said: “We really do appreciate that the people living in our nursing homes have high-level care needs and that means our workforce, both our nurses and our carers, have to be well trained to be able to look after people who are very poorly.”
She added: “It’s very important that communication works well and I think that’s one of the things that comes out of the report.
“Certainly, St Anne’s now over a year on is a different home – is a better home. There’s been lots of recruitment.”
She added: “There’s been lots of training to make sure that that home is able to support the needs of the people living there.”
Islington’s Liberal Democrat social services chief Councillor John Gilbert said the family’s fees at St Anne’s have been waived but that there would be no other financial penalty for Anchor Homes.
He added: “Although there were failings in the care provided we thought we could work with the home to implement improvements.”
He rejected Labour’s calls that surprise spot checks should be made at homes.
“It wouldn’t be effective,” Cllr Gilbert said. |
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