Community care home workers sanctioned for failing to call a doctor for resident with broken leg
Crosslet House, which replaced three community care homes.
By Bill Heaney
It is possibly the first indication that scrapping care homes in the community and moving the patients and staff from three small homes to one big one to achieve “economies of scale”.
Two care home workers at Crosslet House in Dumbarton have been sanctioned and given warnings after leaving a patient lying in bed in pain all night with a broken leg.
Care co-ordinator Margaret Casey and support worker Sheelagh Frame failed to seek medical help for the elderly resident, according to the Scottish Social Services Council.
The resident, whose identity has been kept secret by West Dunbartonshire Council and is known only as AA, told the pair that he/she had a sore leg.
And that she suddenly needed wheelchair assistance to get into to bed, despite usually being mobile.
The SSSC ruled the workers failed to seek medical advice on January 7 last year, which contributed to a delay in medical treatment for the resident
A spokeswoman for the Council told another newspaper: “West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) expects the highest standards from all staff. We fully support the SSSC investigation and reported outcome.”
She declined however to answer any questions from The Democrat which is being boycotted and banned by both the Council and the SNP administration.
Margaret Casey, who is on a Register of Supervisors in a Care Home Service for Adults, was sanctioned and warned to stay on her current registration for six months.
The notice served on her said the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) had decided that her fitness to practise was impaired.
And that a warning would be placed against her name on the Register for a period of 6 months.
A similar sanction was imposed on Sheelagh Frame who said she had learned from this experience. This was the first occasion on which she had been subject to a finding that her fitness to practise was impaired and the incident was isolated.
The Council decided that there was evidence that on or around 7 January, 2018, while employed as a Care Co-ordinator, she failed to seek medical advice when resident AA complained of a pain in their leg.
The resident also displayed a change in their mobility and had to be assisted to bed using a wheelchair when AA had previously been mobile
And that Ms Casey’s failure contributed to a delay in the resident receiving medical treatment for a broken femur – “and in light of the above your fitness to practise is impaired because of your misconduct.”
The Social Services Council told Ms Casey that that her fitness to practise was impaired because:
- service users have the right to expect that the care they receive from social service workers, in whom they place their trust and confidence, will protect them from harm. By failing to seek medical advice after resident AA displayed a change to their mobility and was advising of a pain in their leg, breached the trust and confidence placed in you as a social service worker and placed resident AA at a prolonged risk of harm
And because her “behaviour amounts to failings in the basic values of the profession. Social service workers must uphold the public trust and confidence in social services and must not place vulnerable service users at an unnecessary risk of harm.
Social service workers must be reliable and dependable however – “by failing to seek medical treatment for AA [the resident] demonstrated behaviour that would indicate that there is an on-going need to protect vulnerable service users from your behaviour.
“A reasonable person in possession of all the relevant information would consider the reputation of the profession to be damaged.”
The decision was based on factors of concern which were that it would be reasonable to expect that as an experienced worker you would seek medical advice on discovering a resident’s mobility had changed.
And that her behaviour demonstrated a failure to follow the SSSC Code of Practice for Social Service Workers – “vulnerable service users place trust in you as a social service worker to protect them from unnecessary risk of harm. Resident AA had an injury and did not receive medical attention until the following day.”
Factors taken into account in her favour were that she fully cooperated with the SSSC investigation and that she had shown insight and remorse for her behaviour.
Specifically regarding failing to seek medical advice for resident AA, this was the first occasion she had been subject to a finding that her fitness to practise is impaired and “the incident was isolated”.
Having been advised of the consequences of accepting or not accepting the warning, and recommended to take legal advice, she admitted that her fitness to practise was impaired and accepted the warning on 8 March 2019.