England’s care regulator has been accused of failing to keep private nursing home residents safe after a family alleged a delay in exposing serious risks led to a loved one’s painful premature death.
Relatives of Bernard Chatting, 89, said they relied on a “good” rating from the Care Quality Commission when they moved him into a £1,200-a-week home in Dorset. But after he experienced care so unsafe he ended up in hospital and died a few weeks later, it emerged the CQC already knew the home was failing badly.
The case comes as CQC’s traffic light ratings become increasingly important for people looking to place relatives in England’s 17,000 care homes amid a staffing and funding crisis which experts fear could increase the risk of maltreatment of the most vulnerable citizens. The ratings from inadequate to outstanding are one of the few ways that families can check care standards.
The CQC inspected Lyme Regis nursing home on 16 February 2022, more than six weeks before Chatting moved in, but did not publish its conclusion that the place was “inadequate” and was being put into special measures until 12 May 2022. The delay was partly at the request of the care operator itself.
“We wouldn’t have sent Dad there if we knew,” said Chatting’s son-in-law, Phil Davenport. “It is beyond my understanding how the CQC inspect, have serious concerns, and yet not advise the public more quickly.
“We believe that the lack of care provided by the home was directly responsible for the premature end of Bernard’s life,” he said.
The family is seeking a refund of £16,000 in fees.
Labour said the Chatting family have been “heartbreakingly let down by a system that clearly isn’t working” and said this case is not unique.
The family’s anger at the three-month wait for the “inadequate” alert comes as a £2.3bn black hole in funding for care homes for elderly people in England was last week exposed in a government review, and amid growing reports of rushed and inadequate care for thousands of people. At least one in 10 care home jobs is vacant and staffing shortages are a repeated cause of often distressingly poor care, the CQC inspection reports show. CQC inspectors and other staff have meanwhile voted to strike over pay, with their trade union, Unison, saying low or no wage increases over many years has left vacancies putting the remaining workforce under pressure.
Most care homes are operated by for-profit providers, such as Farrington Care Homes, which has a chain of 11 homes including the one in Lyme Regis, which paid £14.7m in dividends, loans and expenses to its owners, Kiran and Paren Nathwani, in the last two years.
Helen Wildbore, director of the Residents and Relatives Association, said families who complain to the CQC too often receive no response or find the CQC gives too much weight to care homes’ business interests.
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“They are absolutely failing to keep residents safe,” she said. “They are failing the people they are supposed to protect. When we suggest people report poor care to the CQC, we often find they don’t want to because they have had a bad experience previously. There is such a lack of trust in the regulator.”
The family of Ann King, who secretly filmed her abuse by care staff at the £2,400-a-week Reigate Grange care home in Surrey last year, also criticised the watchdog. They are “furious” the regulator has been unable to confirm if staff filmed taunting and assaulting the 88-year-old are still working with vulnerable people elsewhere in the sector.
“They need to be disbanded,” said Ann King’s son, Richard Last. “The CQC is supposed to be the watchdog but it is failing vulnerable people.”
The CQC said police are following up on referrals about Reigate Grange staff to the government’s Disclosure and Barring Service. The regulator’s investigation into whether a criminal prosecution should be brought is also held up because it has still not obtained the full video footage of the abuse four months after an edited version was broadcast by the Guardian.
Bernard Chatting, a diabetic, was hospitalised after nursing home staff failed to check his sugar levels. The family found care notes were being falsified, he lost more than 2 stone (12.7kg) in weight and died on 21 May 2022. Dorset county council was so concerned that it had already stopped sending council-funded residents there, the Guardian understands.
The CQC’s inspections found it was “dirty”, understaffed and people were “at risk of harm”. The CQC also delayed publication of its damning report at the request of Farrington because it was concerned about losing insurance cover.
The CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care, Kate Terroni, said the regulator raised issues with Lyme Regis nursing home immediately with the provider and with the local authority and took enforcement action.
Liz Kendall, Labour’s shadow care minister, said the safety of people in care homes must never be in doubt.
Farrington did not respond to requests for comment. It has apologised to Chatting’s family for failings that contributed to his deterioration and admitted “significant shortfalls in service delivery”.