A care home must pay £178,000 in fines and costs after a 93-year-old resident died because of safety failings.
Elsie Beals was a resident at Aden Court Care Home inin Huddersfield, when she died from asphyxiation on 24 April 2010.
Mrs Beals, who was confined to a wheelchair, was helped to bed the previous evening by two care assistants. When staff checked on her in the early hours of the morning she was found dead with her head trapped between the mattress and the bed’s safety rail.€
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Are we to believe that this was an isolated use of this type of equipment in this one care home?
Have the remaining 26 care homes never been inspected and therefore never been found to be at risk by the Inspecting Authority?
Surely if this is a significant risk you would have thought that guidance would be appropriate.
Those advising such homes need to be aware , and those in charge need to be made aware in order to prevent such tragedy.
Was Ignorence of risk not the fault here?
Ernie,
I stated guidance, not HSG.
Trade guidance is usually more specific and does not take a mutitude of years to come to fruition and is generally more up to date.
Presumably the maufacturer shoud have assessed this risk senario under the manufacturer`s duty of care and issued said guidance?
Ernie,
as you state HSG220 is produced as guidance by the HSE and upon reading it, bed rails are clearly mentioned.
But HSG220 is not mentioned by the HSE Inspector above has having been ignored?
Missed opportunity to raise general awareness perhaps, or is it an indictaion of validity?
Ernie.
As you state, it says refer.
It does not state a duty to comply with or adopt as would be applicable with an ACoP minimal standard.
Hence not referenced herein or anywhere else for that matter.
Do not confuse a strict duty of compliance with guidance.
As stated before we adopt guidance because we are both aware and care, but often we exceed guidance where we are able too, and industry leads the way not the HSE, who play catch up more often than not.
Ernie,
I mean the duty as stated in Schedules, which again are seldom referenced post conviction, but they are applied where they are known?
Other duties apply, but HSG does not imply a duty, the special status of ACoP`s does imply a minmum standard, and the lack of adoptance of a minimal standard has been used effectively in court. And as I have stated before, my PI never used Guidance to prosecute only to advise. Usually a duty of care was breached hence section 2 or 3 used to charge.
Bob, you can’t have it all ways – you refer to the provision of Guidance above yet in the article on HSG33 you say sod the guidance.
In respect of Guidance I remind you that the ACoP for Risk Assessment under the MHSWR’99 does state that employers should refer to Guidance (see L21 para 12(b)). The ACoP does have Special Legal Status and hence the content does too; i.e. reference to Guidance.
There is guidance for Care Homes, including HSG220 and manufacturers duties under HSWA sect. 6 apply.
Bob, there is no duty to adopt ACoPs. We all know that any ACoP is NOT legally binding; employers can put into place their own arrangments if they choose to.
However each ACoP does have special legal status and can therefore be used as evidence in a prosecution to show what an Employer could have done to comply with the Law.
The HSE provide Employers with advice on how to comply with the law (as well as enforce the law) – hence detailed, considered guidance, to assist in complying with the law
Bob, re your comment “Do not confuse a strict duty of compliance (do you mean ACoPs) with guidance” – we have now established that following ACoPs is not mandatory.
All HSE guidance does state “Following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law.” HSE guidance is developed with Industry to enable duty holders to comply with the law! HSE Inspectors may refer to guidance.
“Staff at Aden Court,, had no instruction in how to carry out risk assessments for the safe use of bed rails and no training in how to fit them correctly and keep them safely adjusted”
This HSE comment really annoys me.The staff should be trained in how to fit and adjust bed rails but why then is there a need for risk assessment.
My reaction on reading this is an exasperated ‘NOT AGAIN?!….’ These bedrail death prosecutions keep happening again and again. It’s about time bed rails were replaced with a safer design intead of leaving it to chance of human error or neglect.
I suppose there is an argument that the process is developed via a RA, not really necessary in my opinion. Good intruction and training for staff is all that is needed.
It seems that care homes are anything but ‘care’ for the elderly and infirm. I have lost count how many times a care home has been prosecuted in recent times. A distinct lack of inspections appears to be the primary cause.