BBC Panorama Film Exposes Care Home Failures

Tuesday, 22nd November 2016

A series of disturbing incidents in privately run residential nursing homes in Cornwall have been secretly filmed by the BBC.

As a result of the footage obtained safeguarding concerns have been raised with the local authority and one of the homes; Clinton House, where some of the more serious incidents occurred, is now being closed.

The Morleigh Group, which runs both homes featuring in the programme, said it had already identified problems (Clinton House was given a "requires improvement rating" by the Care Quality Commission in May 2016) but that it had always acted quickly to improve care when asked to do so.

The footage was recorded by three reporters - one posed as a resident in need of respite care, the other two got jobs there.

The first thing the reporter who checked in as a resident noticed was the smell – she described it as an overpowering odour of urine. She watched staff run off their feet, trying to cope with the demands of many immobile residents and saw one lady wait so long to be taken to the toilet that she later confessed that she had wet herself in the meantime. The reporter said that her whole experience in both of these care homes raised serious questions

Another Panorama reporter (Lucy) was hired as a care assistant at Clinton House.

The home claimed that staff were qualified to look after people with mild dementia. But during her employment, Lucy was asked to look after a resident with severe dementia - despite her having had no specialist training.

Using a hidden camera, Lucy filmed a resident lying in a bed with a loose guard rail and a nurse saying she will give morphine to a resident "to shut her up". She also witnessed an out-of-date prescription supplement being re-labelled and issued to a patient for whom it had not been originally prescribed.

As well as announcing the closure of Clinton House, the Morleigh Group has suspended the aforementioned nurse pending an investigation. The group denies failing to give proper attention to the quality and safety of residents' care and claim to have dismissed the home's manager prior to becoming aware of Panorama's investigation.

In response to the safeguarding concerns raised by the Panorama footage Cornwall Council - who placed residents at Clinton House – issued a formal statement to say they were "sorry that the standard of care provided by Morleigh Group fell far short of what residents, their relatives and the general public have a right to expect" and added that it was now investigating two more Morleigh Group homes.

The regulator, the Care Quality Commission, said it has had serious concerns with the Morleigh Group for some time, and had issued warning notices.

Andrea Sutcliffe, the CQC's chief inspector of adult social care, said: "We were appalled to have found that the Morleigh Group has allowed the quality of care to decline."

Panorama: Nursing Homes Under Cover was broadcast at 20.30 GMT on BBC One on Monday 21 November and can be watched again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0844wq3