A daughter has told how she was left “haunted” by the treatment shown to her mum in a care home before her death after receiving a £10,000 pay out from the residence.
Linda Watson’s dementia stricken mum Ellen Watson died 13 months after breaking her hip in a fall which prompted a move to Bothwell Castle Care Home in Uddingston.
Linda, who described her 93-year-old mum as “kindest person you could ever meet” chose the “luxury care home” which Ellen moved in during June 2020.
Several weeks before Ellen died her health deteriorated. District nurses visiting the home filed an adult support and protection referral – which alerts social services if it is known or believed that an adult is at risk of harm.
The referral obtained by Linda stated: “Ellen is at risk of neglect” and said Ellen pulled the needle from her syringe driver – which was delivering her end of life drugs – at 21:30 on 1 July 2021 but care staff failed to contact the district nursing team to “re-site” the needle until 08:35 the next day.
Linda told the BBC her mother went without her end of life medication for 14 hours as a result, which she described as “unforgiveable”. She added: “I can’t comprehend it. I can never get my head round that. Never.”
Bothwell Castle Care Home has since apologised to Ms Watson and said her mother’s end of life care “fell short of our usual high standards”.
The Care Inspectorate’s probe revealed that the service failed to respond appropriately when Ellen Watson’s family raised concerns about her palliative care.
Three out of the daughter’s six complaints including that her mother did not receive palliative care and support in line with best practice and standards were upheld by the Care Inspectorate.
But it said on the evidence available that staff had endeavoured to support her through periods of stress and distress. The investigation also found that the service failed to respond appropriately when Ellen Watson’s family raised concerns about her palliative care.
Lind said: “All that was left that I could give my mum was for her to die in peace and she didn’t. She just didn’t die in peace. It was horrific. The one thing I hope by speaking out is that somebody somewhere has the capacity to come and go ‘this can’t happen in care homes’.”
In a statement, Bothwell Castle Care Home said they “strongly refute the allegation that the care provided to Ellen Watson was ‘horrific’”.
The statement read: “Nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our residents. We would again like to offer our condolences to Mrs Watson and sincere apologies that her mother’s end of life care fell short of our usual high standards.
“We take any complaints or concerns raised with us extremely seriously, and following Mrs Watson’s complaint, we undertook a comprehensive internal investigation and participated fully in an external investigation with the Care Inspectorate.
“Further to the investigations in 2021, the Care Inspectorate’s next visit to our home in 2022 confirmed that the required areas for improvement had been met and the complaint closed.”
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