Guide to care home medical negligence | home nursing

Everyone within the family has been badly defeated

“One in 5 nursing homes  across the united kingdom are found to not have enough employees on duty to confirm residents received smart, safe care.”                      Care Quality Commission report , 2013/14.

Care homes have come back below the spotlight in recent years as negative reports into care employee standards have unconcealed levels of negligence and abuse in an exceedingly range of cases.

It’s usually a tough enough call to position a member of your family into a care home. Your alternative of home was supported trust and confidence.  You expected AN acceptable commonplace of care would be provided and you powerfully feel that everybody within the family has been badly defeated.

Lack of correct employees superintendence

While several care homes do give glorious care, it's not perpetually the case. Some care homes are found to lack the correct employees superintendence, expertise or coaching desired to produce AN acceptable level of daily take care of senior individuals in vulnerable physical or psychological state.

The anxiety and distress felt by all the family demands answers for why “conditions are allowed to continue” and a beloved seems “deprived of all sense of dignity.”

If you have got believe that AN senior relative isn't receiving the quality of care expected or maybe being willfully neglected, you will have cause to bring:

A negligence claim against the care home and
Claim compensation on behalf of the loved one affected
Our dedicated clinical negligence team at Your Legal Friend has a few years of expertise in with success breakdown many alternative styles of cases wherever commonplaces of treatment and care have fallen below the acceptable standard, so those accountable square measure dropped at account.

We can assist you :

Find out if AN senior loved one has not received  the expected commonplace of care or been subjected to abuse
Secure access to form your criticism detected
Obtain legal compensation for the injury or damage suffered.
An increasing want
The number of individuals aged eighty five and over has accumulated by half-hour between 2005 and 2014.                                 
 (Office for National Statistics, 2013)

Between 2005/6 and 2012/13, the elderly’s use of:

Residential care homes – rose by twenty first from one hundred thirty five,000 to 164,000.
Nursing care – rose by twenty second from sixty five,000 to 79,000.
                                                                                                         (Care in Crisis Report  - Age Great Britain, 2014)

Between 2013/14, a Care Quality Commission Study found:

A wide variation within the quality of adult social care
People in residential (non-nursing) care homes attended receive higher care than those in nursing homes
One in 5 nursing homes didn't have enough employees on duty to confirm residents received smart, safe care
Compliance was ten -15% higher for care homes with a registered manager.
                                                                      ( ‘State of Care’ annual report on health and social care in European nation, 2013/14)

176,000 safeguarding alerts were rumored by 132 councils, 2012/13, up by 27,000 (20 per cent) on 2011/12
78 per cent of native councils had a rise in alerts, 2012-13.
                                                                                                (hscisc - Abuse of Vulnerable Adults in European nation, 2012/13)

The two main styles of care home

Residential care homes

Vary in size from terribly little homes with few beds to large-scale facilities.
Offer care and support, day and night.
Staff facilitate with laundry, dressing, at meal times, and with victimization the privy.
Nursing homes

Normally supply an equivalent kind of care as residential homes
With the addition of 24-hour medical aid from a professional nurse.
Signs of neglect or abuse - what to appear for

It’s virtually bound you may in real time feel that “something is wrong” as a result of of:

Not being their “usual self” - a precise amendment in behaviour or acting out of character.
Health issues - like bed sores or loss of weight.
Personal hygiene problems – like a robust smell of piddle indicating basic wants don't seem to be being met.
Dehydration – failure by carers to confirm enough liquids square measure being taken, that could lead on to frequent tract infections. Is water or juice out there and procurable and in an exceedingly cup that may be used?
Medication – a modified condition might be caused by AN o.d. or not receiving medication. however usually has the care home’s medico seen your relative and reviewed their medication? square measure the medication charts correct and up-to-date?
Calls for facilitate or decision bells – however quickly square measure they answered by staff? will your relative access their decision bell or has it been place out of reach?
Access – square measure the doors security coded so employees accompany residents once accessing totally different floors? square measure the doorway and exit points of the premises secured to prevent vulnerable residents wandering off and being exposed to harm? square measure the hearth exits in smart condition?
Accidents - will and do happen in residential care homes and square measure usually caused by carelessness on the a part of the employees.
Injuries - the unexpected look of bruising, cuts, grazes, that look unlikely to be the results of a fall or AN accident square measure the foremost obvious signs of physical abuse.
However, accidents also can be caused by negligence because:

Appropriate instrumentality might not be provided or maintained
Lack of employees attending.
Compensation Claims for Care Home Negligence
You may be eligible to form a claim for care home negligence, if you have got suffered AN injury as a results of failures such as:

Providing regular bathing, laundry and cleansing
Providing food or water resulting in dehydration and deficiency disease
Providing acceptable lifting aids resulting in injury and harmProviding acceptable medication or medical aid once needed
Providing clean bedding and alter consumer goods
Preventing pressure sores or pressure ulcers from developing or failing to treat pre existing pressure sores
Preventing a fall, that caused a fracture or injury to the pinnacle and back
Preventing careless handling while being touched
Using acceptable quality aids or properly supervise
Preventing administration errors.
Physical abuse resulting in severe injuries may be a terribly serious issue, requiring proof of:

Assault and bullying

Abusive comments, obscene language, yelling and threatening behaviour/ actions
Lack of take care of patients with low brainpower
Personal insults and showing lack of compassion and sympathy
Errors in employees conduct
Withholding necessary food, physical care, and medical attention
Other instances of practice and abuse.
How Your Legal Friend will assist you..
As toughened clinical negligence specialists, we all know that if you and your family square measure involved by the treatment and care a relative has received at a care home or rest home, you may be feeling severely defeated and can wish to carry those accountable to account for the damage and distress caused to all or any involved.

Your Legal Friend is committed to making sure that victims of every kind of negligence have legal access to form their voice detected, which can forestall others from suffering in an exceedingly similar means.