Care home manager may be struck off

Mar 28 2008 The Journal

A CARE home manager from the North could be struck off today after presiding over what inspectors said was the worst home they had ever seen.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) was told yesterday that Ann Rigby let the Bamburgh Court Care Centre for the mentally ill, in South Shields, fall into such a state of disrepair that patients were forced to sleep on filthy mattresses surrounded by faeces smeared on the walls.

Inspectors discovered one woman hunched in the dark, in a room stinking of urine and faeces, with only a mattress on the floor to sleep on.

Rigby, 50, has admitted a series of charges in relation to the case but declined to appear at the hearing in London, which was told that inspectors Jackie Herring and Darren Hobson visited the property on May 27, 2004.

The home was billed as a specialist care centre, and separated into the Cleadon Unit for dementia patients and the Marsden Unit for the elderly.

John Hepworth, for the NMC, said: “In the Cleadon Unit there was faecal matter on the walls in the corridor. In one bedroom there was a mattress on the floor. The resident in this room was sitting in a chair in the room, hunched over and looking very uncared for.

“The room was very dark and there was no light on and the door was shut. There was a smell of urine and the bed bumper in this room had ingrained faecal matter upon it.

“In total three or four bedrooms on the Cleadon unit had no beds and only single mattresses on the floor. Placing a mattress on the floor is unacceptable.

“The residents appeared to be in an unkempt state. There were a number of residents who were wearing inadequate footwear. Some had one shoe on and one shoe off and some wore no footwear at all. There were a number of residents wandering around the quadrangle without any direction from care staff. Some were unshaven and had uncombed hair. Some had dirty fingernails.”

He added: “Mr Hobson formed the view that the condition of the home was very significantly worse than a typical home of a similar size on a poor day. He concluded that this was the worst home that he had visited.”

Rigby first registered as a nurse in 1979. She had worked at the home since 1997 was promoted to general manager in September 2001.

She was away on a training day with her deputy manager Alison Duncan during the inspection. An improvement notice was served immediately and the manager suspended on June 4 2004. Rigby eventually resigned through ill health in November 2004.

The manager, from South Shields, has admitted six counts of failing to ensure the home was properly maintained, failing to ensure it was clean, tidy and hygienic and failing to provide adequate nursing care.

Ashbourne Healthcare sent in the inspection team following a complaint by a relative of a resident.

The disciplinary panel found Rigby guilty of misconduct. They will rule today if she should be struck off.