APPALLING

Sunday Mirror, Aug 24, 2008 by NICK OWENS

EIGHT patients were taken to hospital, some on stretchers, after a care home "from hell" was shut down by appalled inspectors in the middle of the night.

They were forced to apply for an emergency closure order after they say they found appalling neglect at the home. Patients had not been given enough food or water - one woman had been given just four sips of liquid in 24 hours, despite 80-degree heat.

Spot-checks found others hadn't been given their medicine and bottles of pills had been wrongly labelled.

Terminally ill Margaret Liversage, 92, and Mary Aston, 80, died shortly after being moved. Staff and relatives said the home was under-staffed and neighbours said they saw confused residents wandering the streets.

The home was closed when inspectors from the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) took out a court order to withdraw the home's registration in a dramatic midnight hearing.

The home's owner, Paramjit Sohanpaul, is also in charge of another care home. Sohanpaul, 52, who lives in a pounds 1m home and has a driveway full of luxury cars, took over Southfields Care Home five years ago. Staff at the home, in Brackley, Northants, said he immediately began to cut costs.

Janet Wheeler, 58, the senior care co-ordinator for 22 years, said: "As soon as Pammi arrived he wrote me a letter saying he was cutting my wages. It had been a lovely home before he turned up. We were run ragged trying to wash, bath, dress, feed and treat residents. For the poor residents it was hell." The first signs that the home was failing emerged in October 2006 when inspectors ranked it "poor". No action was taken at the time but, two months ago, inspectors received a tip-off from a concerned relative about new problems and launched a fresh investigation

A series of unannounced visits followed and inspectors discovered the home, which housed 34 residents and charged pounds 650 a week for each, was chaotically run. Carer numbers had been slashed, staff had been taken on without police checks, and 10 of the residents were reportedly found dehydrated and in need of treatment.

Jim Spencer, whose wife Hazel, 58, was in the home after suffering a brain tumour and two strokes, said he had tried to raise several issues of care with Sohanpaul. "I tried to have it out with the owner but he ignored me," he said.

Age Concern's Derry Miller said: "It is horrific that vulnerable older people failed to get proper care.

Lives were put at risk because the home was managed so badly."

Norwyn Cole, the CSCI regional director, said: "We have had concerns for some time about the poor standards of care at Southfield, which was why it was closed.

"Despite being given every opportunity, the owner has failed to make the improvements necessary to meet national standards."

DCI Neil McMahon, from Northants police, said: "We will monitor the situation and will respond should any new information or evidence emerge."

All the other residents have been moved to new homes.

Autopsies carried out on the two who died found their deaths could not been linked to standards of care at the home.

The Sunday Mirror approached Sohanpaul at his seven-bedroom home in Windsor, Berks, but he refused to answer any questions. There are no concerns about standards at his other care home.

nick.owens@sundaymirror.co.uk

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