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| TX: 09.10.08 - Parkview Care Home PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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| Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Sarah Rutter, who is 101 and has dementia, has been the sole resident of Parkview Care Home in Stockton-on-Tees since July. Mrs Rutter's family went to both the High Court and the Court of Appeal in an effort to keep her where she is. But yesterday they found out they'd been unsuccessful and she will now have to move. I spoke to Mrs Rutter's granddaughter - Christine Wardell - earlier this morning. WARDELL Well the family's very disappointed and really ashamed of the British government and the justice system for letting this go this far and happen, you know these councils can just pack up our old people like baggage and just ship 'em off when they choose to close a home and it's just not fair. BARCLAY But why do you think that moving will prove detrimental? If she isn't really necessarily aware of what's going on around her surely it could simply be that she settles in happily into new circumstances. WARDELL And hopefully that's what will happen but these risks - it's very stressful when somebody moves themselves, so you can imagine what it's like for an old person with dementia to be moved to somewhere totally different to what they're used to. BARCLAY What about her doctors and perhaps the care staff who work with her at the moment, are they worried that this may be a detriment to her health? WARDELL There was a doctor involved, a couple of doctors, who've said the move if done very carefully and in the summer months should be okay but they are worried about her being moved in the winter months. BARCLAY And is that likely to be what happens - is she going to be moved very shortly? WARDELL Yes, the council have already tried to move her out a week ago without any communication with the family. We just actually went down there one morning to visit her and her stuff was packed up ready to leave. So we were really concerned about that happening and Yvonne got an injunction to stop that, that day. BARCLAY So Yvonne, Yvonne Hossack, the family solicitor, is also with us. Yvonne, are there any more legal avenues which you can explore? HOSSACK No there aren't, that's the end of the day and coming back to what Chrissie said - people do suffer health wise and some of them do die when they're moved. And the trauma for a person with dementia is that their world contracts to a very small area of people that they know and the places that they know so that this old lady because she can't understand that she's moving, when she's moved everything will be unfamiliar and she won't know what's going on. So that she will wake up in an unfamiliar room, it is a frightening experience, for a person with dementia that trauma and that fear is intensified. BARCLAY But didn't most doctors consulted on this case agree that it was in Sarah Rutter's best interests for her to be moved? HOSSACK They also agreed that she was safe where she was, that there was no danger of an increase of morbidity or mortality but that if she moved after late September that there was up to a 10% risk of her dying. BARCLAY Stockton Council says it's spending almost seven and a half thousand pounds a week to look after Sarah, do you accept that that's perhaps not perhaps the best use of taxpayers' money? HOSSACK They wouldn't be spending that amount of course per person if they hadn't decided to close and moved every single other person out leaving Sarah alone. But when we come to money none of this is Sarah's fault and if it were our lives or if it were the lives of our child would we say that £7,400 a week was too much for their life - what is the value of a human life? This old lady at 101, her life expectancy is short, this is a question of the old lady being allowed to die in peace in the arms and the hands of the people that she loves or this old lady possibly dying in fear and trauma, having been moved and in the arms of strangers. BARCLAY Solicitor Yvonne Hossack and Sarah Rutter's granddaughter Christine Wardell. Stockton-on-Tees borough council told us in a statement: We have always acted in what we believe are Mrs Rutter's best interests and we will, of course, continue to plan and provide the highest quality of care for Mrs Rutter. In view of the outcome we will make plans for Mrs Rutter's transfer when the conditions are appropriate. This is being done in accordance with the plan submitted to the court. We will continue to work closely with Mrs Rutter's family during this time. And we have now heard that Mrs Rutter's family are expecting her to be moved this afternoon. So what is reasonable in a situation like this? Can a balance be struck between protecting the rights of the individual and curbing huge costs for the taxpayer? Elizabeth McLennan is a senior policy officer at Help the Aged and Sarah Pickup is director of adult care in Hertfordshire and represents the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. Sarah Pickup, surely if there is an increased risk of death every effort should be made to avoid moving a resident? PICKUP Well I think in normal circumstances every effort is made to avoid moving people but there will inevitably be circumstances and I think this is probably one of them, without going into the detail, that people do need to be moved. And the key, when people do need to be moved, is to do it very carefully. To plan it, to make sure that the family have a chance to visit the alternative accommodation, preferably to familiarise the person concerned with the alternative accommodation. And sometimes if you are closing a care home and clearly that does happen from time to time you can move groups of people together so that friends stay with friends. So there are things you can do to minimise the risk. And I know that one local authority I know of had, some time ago, to close four homes and they tracked residents, following very carefully planned moves, and found no difference in the expected - life expectancies of people after the move, as compared to before. So if it's done carefully it can be fine for people. And it is inevitable at times. What is not good is if people have an unplanned move, occasionally that has to happen as well. BARCLAY Elizabeth McLennan, what are your rights as a care home resident to choose to stay where you are? MCLENNAN Well if you're a care home resident it really depends mainly how you're funded actually, if you're a self-funder, that means you don't go through the local authority for your care home place, you have very few rights and very little legal protection, your only recourse really is to take your money elsewhere, as a consumer would do, so you'd buy your care from another care home. If you're a local authority funded resident you have more rights. Fairly soon local authority funded residents will be also - will come under the Human Rights Act, which is a major step forward, that currently hasn't happened yet. But if you want to make a complaint or if you want to challenge you can use a local authority complaints procedure as well. BARCLAY Elizabeth, also what kind of problems have you encountered with moving homes, do you agree with Sarah that if it's planned it can be done well? MCLENNAN Yes I think we're not unrealistic and we understand that sometimes care homes do need to be closed and actually we're in support of the general move to support more care in the community, so to have fewer care home places available. But of course that does have short term consequences for the people in the care homes. But you know, as Sarah said, if you plan the move and if it's done carefully and I think with compassion as well then it can be done reasonably. But a fast care home move can be detrimental to health and may sort of precipitate death or damage to health yes. BARCLAY So Sarah if a home has to close and as you've said some simply do and there's nothing anyone can do about that what do you think is a reasonable timescale then? And what about this point made by the court about not moving people during the winter months for instance? PICKUP I mean I think those are all things that have got to be considered and you want to give the maximum amount of time. If it's a planned closure due to perhaps surplus capacity in the area you can be working with people for a number of months beforehand and that's - makes it easier, people can visit the alternative premises and those sorts of things. Sometimes homes are closed because they fail to meet required standards and the inspectors decree that they'll be closed and in those circumstances what an authority like mine would do is work with all the residents, where they're funded by the local authority or not, to seek alternative accommodation, discuss with the families the need to move them and if there were a choice about staying there or not staying there when there's a safeguarding concern we would be making sure that everybody was clear about what the issues were. But sometimes the faster moves are due to closures which are to do with the safe - perceived or real - safety in the home. BARCLAY So are you saying then that everyone, the resident and their families, should be able to expect that kind of level of help from social services during the transition, that you say that your authority would make? PICKUP In a planned - in a planned closure or even a re-provision - if you want to rebuild a care home you sometimes have to move people in - well you do have to move people in the meantime - then you can do that in a planned way and I would expect authorities to do that. Where there is an urgent closure authorities actually work together, so there might be people placed from one authority in another, and you would expect people to do their absolute best they can but understanding that in an emergency you can't always do the level of communication and the degree of visits that you might otherwise be able to do. BARCLAY Elizabeth is this something that social care departments and organisations such as yours, at Help the Aged, need to work more with care homes on? MCLENNAN I think so. A lot of local authorities do have protocols on consultation periods with residents, supporting self-funded residents to move, especially if they have no family or friends. But a lot of care homes and particularly in this climate are actually really struggling to keep themselves afloat so I think ... BARCLAY And so it does come down to budgets at the end of the day? MCLENNAN Sometimes that's the bottom line, as Sarah said, other times it's to do with regulatory issues and actually a failure to meet the standards in that care home. But I think we do need to set out some more clear protocols for care homes yes. BARCLAY Elizabeth McLennan from Help the Aged and Sarah Pickup, director of adult care in Hertfordshire, thank you both. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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