Staff sacking and suspensions over poor elderly care

One staff member has been sacked and seven suspended from one of England's largest care homes after an undercover probe by BBC Panorama found poor care.

The filming at the Old Deanery in Essex showed some residents being taunted, roughly handled and one was slapped.

The home said it was "shocked and saddened by the allegations".

Exclusive Care Quality Commission (CQC) figures show over a third of homes that received warning notices in 2011 still do not meet basic standards.

Allegations of poor care and mistreatment at the 93-bed home in Braintree, where residents pay roughly £700 per week, were first raised by 11 whistleblowers in August 2012.

Essex County Council put it on special measures for three months until concerns were addressed.

But secret filming by Panorama's undercover reporter over 36 shifts found many of the same sorts of issues reported a year earlier, including:
 

A woman slapped by a care worker who had previously been complained about for her poor attitude towards residents
 

The same woman, who has dementia and is partially paralysed after a stroke, was also repeatedly mocked and taunted by other care workers

Cries for assistance from a resident suffering a terminal illness ignored as she sought help for the toilet, and her call bell for assistance left unplugged on one occasion
 

A resident bed-ridden with a chronic illness left lying in his own excrement after two care workers turned off his call bell without assisting him

Last November, while Panorama was undercover, the home was inspected by the regulator and passed for the first time in 18 months.

When the CQC revisited this February after being told about Panorama's findings, they found too few staff and some residents waiting an "unacceptably long time" for call bells to be answered.

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