Nursing home fined after patient’s death

Nursing home fined after patient’s death

18 December 2019

A NEWCASTLE nursing home was fined £12,000 on Monday after it admitted a health and safety breach which led to the death of a 82 year-old woman.

Downpatrick Crown Court heard that the woman died nearly four weeks after she fell and hit her head.

The accident happened when Mrs Margaret Sumner was left alone by a member of staff while using a toilet at Slieve Dhu residential and nursing home on the Bryansford Road on June 22, 2016.

Slieve Dhu’s company director, Mr Micheal Rogers, was in court to hear the sentence against the home which has been established for nearly 40 years.

At an earlier hearing in September he entered a guilty plea on behalf of the home to a charge of failing to ensure the safety of a non-employee. The charge was brought under the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order.

Prosecution counsel Laura Ievers told the court that Mrs Sumner had been living at the home since 2011, initially as a residential client and later requiring nursing care.

She said the woman had been released from hospital the day before her fall and walked with the aid of a rollator walker.

A member of staff accompanied Mrs Sumner to the toilet that evening but instead of remaining inside the bathroom with Mrs Sumner or remaining just outside the door to give her privacy, the staff member left her to carry out another duty.

However, staff heard a loud bump and ran to check Mrs Sumner’s room to find her face down on the bathroom with a wound to her head.

The prosecutor said that while Mrs Sumner initially came around and was able to talk to staff, she “took a turn for the worst and suffered a bleed to the brain”. She also developed pneumonia and died in hospital, said the prosecutor.

Mrs Ievers added that it was noted in Mrs Sumner’s care plan that she should not be left unattended while using the toilet.

Defence counsel Frank O’Donoghue told the court Slieve Dhu was a “well run business which has never had any type of incident like this before”.

He said that since the passing of Mrs Sumner, there had been a review of procedures with steps put in place to ensure such an incident was unlikely to happen again. 

Outlining how the company “fully co-operated” with the police and health and social care investigators, Mr O’Donoghue described how staff had been “verbally told” about the client’s need.

He said that since the accident, there was a system in place that ensured that care plans were automatically updated every four weeks.

There was increased time for staff to check and understand the care plans, “a recognised hand over” between day and evening staff shifts and improved panic alarms in each room. 

Imposing the fine on Slieve Dhu Ltd, Judge Geoffrey Miller said it was clear the “breach led directly to the consequences” of Mrs Sumner’s fall and to “some of the mortal injuries she sustained as a consequence”.

“All staff in the home ought to have been fully aware of the very specific care plan drawn up for Mrs Sumner,” said the judge. “There can be no doubt that on this occasion, these procedures were not followed by the staff member in whose care she was at the relevant time.”

Judge Millar said of Mrs Sumner just before her death: “There can be no doubt that she was a very frail and vulnerable lady at the time of her death.

“Clearly as a long term resident at the home, staff would be very familiar with her and her needs and requirements. More specifically I note that Mrs Sumner had only returned to the home from hospital the day before this accident.

“Her brother described her as being in great form and was looking forward to getting back to Slieve Dhu — that’s an acknowledgement that she was very happy and content in the nursing home.”

However, the judge added that when her brother saw Mrs Sumner in hospital a few days later, she “was in a very different state, was bleeding heavily from a wound on her head and was very agitated and distressed”.

Handing down the fine, Judge Miller said: “It is clear that procedures regarding toileting for Mrs Sumner, and presumably the other vulnerable residents, required staff to always be in attendance whether in the cubicle or discreetly outside when privacy was required.” 

Slieve Dhu was given three months to pay the fine.