Following recent reports regarding care homes in Scotland and the UK, Pandora Summerfield, our Chief Executive, has issued the following statement.
Fifty-nine isn’t old for any one, including people with Down’s syndrome, who due to better health care and support, can now live into their 70s. In May, these systems failed a 59 year old woman with Down’s syndrome.
This woman, a resident for five years of an Edinburgh nursing home, died two days after being admitted to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary with an infection from an open pressure sore.
Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS) monitors care homes. They awarded this nursing home a “good” grade in October 2010. They assessed only the quality of “care and support”. The remaining themes: “environment”, “staffing” and “management and leadership” were not assessed. In April, an unannounced inspection, gave the home the lowest grade for all themes, which represented a “more serious level of concern”. The woman died a month later. This assessment of a home is not uncommon. The Care Commission says one in every 10 homes is weak or unsatisfactory.
Isn’t it unforgiveable that in an age when people are living longer, a person’s life could be cut short due to poor quality of care?
It’s not only the poor quality of care that is concerning about this case, but also the lack of specialist services for people with learning disabilities. According to the University of Bath, the average age of care home residents is 90, so why did the council consider it appropriate for a 54 year old woman to be in a nursing home for older people in the first place?
Research by Learning Disability Alliance Scotland (LDAS) found across Scotland, nearly 800 people with learning disabilities (a third under 65), were placed in routine care homes instead of specialist services for people with learning disabilities. They found staff had little access to external training and many did not understand how to communicate with some people with learning disabilities.
Are we a civilized society, if we accept that a person’s life could be cut short due to poor quality of care, or that they should be cared for in services that are unable to meet their particular needs?
