Research and Account of Abuse

Account No.1: Ashcourt Nursing Home: 81 year old Maria Worroll Maria Worroll, 81, suffers from Alzheimer’s and arthritis, and requires around-the-clock care. “An elderly woman was physically assaulted by a male carer and mistreated by four others in a care home classed ”excellent” by the national regulator, the Care Quality Commission. Jane Worroll secretly filmed her mother’s room in Ash Court, London, after she noticed bruising on her mother’s arms and legs and suspected she was being mistreated. The footage, broadcast for the first time on BBC Panorama, shows care workers feeding Maria Worroll too quickly, manually rolling her over, and hauling her roughly into bed – an action that should have been performed using a hoist. All five main care workers filmed by Jane Worroll were sacked. Forest Healthcare, which manages the home, say this was an isolated incident, and that they receive positive feedback on the care in Ash Court, which is subject to “continual improvement.” Fiona Phillips reports. Forest Healthcare has no connection to Forest Care Ltd which operates homes in Hampshire and Surrey.”

Panorama – Undercover: Elderly Care, Monday 8.30pm, BBC One The issue of abuse at Ashcourt which was deemed ‘excellent’ by cqc was raised by a few members of family, then they put in secret cameras to catch these mistreated of service users. The home is mostly to blame for these events as the staff should be trained and observed when complaints are being made. The manager in charge wasnt handling complaints and concerns with staff as the care the service user was getting decreased rapidly. In the video, it shows care staff manual handling a service user that clearly needs some other suppport to assist them to and from places. Overall the failure to monitor service users with less capacity meant they where outed to the whole country, which in the long run can mean serious decline in buisness. Account 2: Oakfloss Nursing Home: 89 year old Ivy Robinson

‘A care home assistant has been sent to prison for “unforgivable and unacceptable” neglect and ill-treatment of an 89-year-old woman. Emma Bryan’s “sickening” mistreatment of Ivy Robinson was uncovered only after the pensioner’s worried family recorded the abuse on a camera concealed within an alarm clock at Oakfoss House residential care home in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Bryan, 29, hit and shook Robinson, verbally abused her on a number of occasions and failed to administer proper doses of medicine. Along with her colleague Katherine Wallis, 45, she dragged Robinson across her bedroom floor, making the elderly woman scream in pain. Wallis then threatened her with violence. Abuse spanning five days was captured on the hidden CCTV camera after Robinson’s family became concerned about bruises on her body and saw that she was more distressed than usual.

She suffers from dementia and had lived at the home for six years.’ The report of abuse at Oakfloss nursing home, was also found by a relative of the service user and they installed a hidden camera. The failure to provide a safe and confidentual enviroment for the service user was deemed unsafe and unprofessional. In both reports, the service user suffering the abuse had less capacity which made them more vulnerable to abuse and neglect. When the service user has less capacity then as the manager or nurse in charge, they should recieve better care planning, more person centred approach and regular assesments and checks to prevent abuse from happening.