One of Britain’s biggest care home companies employed an 80-year-old senior nurse in a short-staffed care home who was older than some residents and not strong enough to help lift them.
HC-One employed the octogenarian at Tower Bridge Care Centre, which was found by inspectors to be “inadequate” and “not safe”, in a case that highlights a chronic shortage of care workers across the UK.
The woman’s role emerged when she failed to call 999 as required after an 83-year-old resident with dementia, Josephine Coggins, suffered an unexplained head injury, which later resulted in admission to hospital where she later died with pneumonia.
An investigation by HC-One found that the elderly nurse was not strong enough to help hoist residents, a common part of the job. Facing disciplinary action over her delay to notify emergency services about the head injury she “resigned to retire with immediate effect”.
Rachel Jarmyn, Coggins’ daughter, said she was “flabbergasted” at the age of the senior nurse. “When we first discovered that I thought someone had made a mistake,” she said. “It’s absolutely beyond belief.”
The case comes as new figures show one in 10 social care posts are unfilled in a staffing crisis that campaigners say threatens resident safety. In England 152,000 social care posts remain empty and there is an increased reliance on agency staff, according to annual figures released on Wednesday by Skills for Care, a government-funded agency.
There is no upper age limit for nurses, but less than 0.1% of those registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council are aged over 75. Nurses must renew their registration every three years including a declaration of health and character. Age discrimination by employers is illegal under the Equality Act.
The elderly care worker was in charge of a night shift in June 2022 when she saw that Coggins had a head injury. She claimed she thought it was “an old bump” so did not call 999. Photos show bruising spread across her forehead, eye socket and scalp. A later investigation found the injury probably occurred when two other care workers were hoisting her from her chair into bed.
The investigation said the senior nurse was unable to help lift Coggins “because she wasn’t strong enough to do any hoisting”.
A spokesperson for the care provider expressed “condolences” to family and friends and said: “The behaviour and attitude of a number of our former colleagues was simply unacceptable, and not in line with our values of transparency and kindness. We have a new local and regional management team in place since this incident occurred in June 2022, and have had extensive senior support in the home for some time now to ensure that lessons are learned.”
Social care vacancy rates are running higher than before the pandemic and are almost three times higher than the wider economy. Care home inspectors repeatedly find staff shortages causing poor and sometimes unsafe care.
The problem has been reduced by the arrival of 70,000 foreign workers, mostly on skilled worker visas, after adult social care was added to shortage occupation list in February 2022. But Hugh Alderwick, policy director at the Health Foundation thinktank, said international recruitment was “no replacement for the urgent action needed by the government to improve pay and conditions for people working in social care”.
Unions are also warning some migrant workers are facing “shocking abuse”. Unison, which represents care workers, said it has received several reports of workers required to be permanently on call, working 19-hour shifts without breaks, having wages withheld and being required to pay large sums to recruitment agencies, which are then split with the care operator.
One care industry source told the Guardian they were made aware of a case where 14 migrant workers were being accommodated in a single room and were being farmed out by agents to undertake back-to-back shifts at different care homes. They were seen to be eating leftovers from the residents’ meals and falling asleep on the job.