Border Telegraph | News | Delight as no fault is found with nursing home

Tuesday, 6th January, 2009

Published: Wednesday, 22nd February, 2006 10:30

Delight as no fault is found with nursing home

By Border Telegraph Newsroom

GALASHIELS nursing home has been cleared of any blame surrounding the deaths of two elderly residents.

Sheriff Principal Edward Bowen delivered his findings this week following a 14-day Sudden Deaths Inquiry in October and November.

And in his 18-page report praised staff and standards at the Kirkbrae home.

Following the death of 94-year-old Jane Constance on November 7, 2001, a doctor at Borders General Hospital alerted police saying he suspected that she died because of an insulin overdose.

Officers swooped on the home but following a lengthy enquiry no charges were brought.

The sheriff principal also found that she died of natural causes. He said: “It appears that a question arose as to whether Mrs Constance died because of an overdose of insulin.

“It now appears that any such suspicion was not justified.

“Galashiels Nursing Home was caught up in a wave of suspicion that at the end of day appears to have been based, at best, on misunderstandings.”

Almost three years later, 83-year-old Elizabeth Swinscoe died following surgery on a pressure sore at Borders General Hospital on June 25, 2004.

Again fingers were pointed at the nursing home where she had developed the bedsores.

Officers from watchdog body the Care Commission carried out an unannounced inspection only days after the retired nurse’s death – and less than a month after a previous inspection.

But while Sheriff Principal Bowen could not find fault with Galashiels Nursing Home, he was highly critical of the Care Commission. He stated: “I have the distinct impression that the terms of the reports following the visits in June and July 2004 were intended to be protective of the Care Commission’s position by demonstrating that their officers were alive to the fact that not everything which might have been recorded had been recorded.”

He added: “Unfortunately the emphasis on regulation appears to have been accompanied by a somewhat bureaucratic and unhelpful attitude on the part of at least one officer of the Commission.”

Nursing home owner Charles Ingram said he was delighted with the findings which totally vindicated his business and staff after years of suspicion.

But he revealed that the inquiry had cost him around £75,000 in legal fees, and his business had been deprived of a sum in the region of £300,000 due to restrictions put in place by the Care Commission and Scottish Borders Council.

Mr Ingram told the Border Telegraph: “We had expected this result, but after such a long period of time waiting for it to come to a conclusion it is very gratifying that it turned out this way.

“One of the reasons I am very happy about it is that we attended the FAI with full counsel and that was to make sure the staff – which work very hard at Galashiels Nursing Home – did not have any cloud or aspersions cast over their work.

“The sheriff principal absolved the nursing home from any failure of any kind.

“We have put up with a lot, with four years of the added regulations put on by the various bodies carrying out investigations and reports in the media.”

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