Andrew recently represented a Sussex care home in a complex inquest. The 3 day inquest was conducted in person and also involved the PIPS, another care home, the local authority, and the NHS.
An elderly man had died shortly after being transferred from another care home to the client’s care home.
It was alleged that the local authority social services had contributed towards the cause of death by facilitating a transfer where the patient was too unwell to move. It was also alleged that the client care home had not prevented unnecessary dehydration and not sought out of hours medical assistance.
There were multiple issues to consider.
One was the vexed question of funding in circumstances where it appeared the patient had been moved because the rules prevented him remaining in an NHS funded assessment bed when that bed was wanted for another patient.
At the same time, there were no alternative local authority funded beds available in the same care home. Also, the funding was to run out over an Easter weekend and there was a rush to move the patient in advance of the holiday for the same financial reasons.
Another issue was whether the deceased should have been moved at all given his medical condition? There was a dispute of evidence between the PIPs, the manager of the outgoing care home and the social worker as to what had been said in the telephone conversations discussing the move.
The staff of the client care home receiving the patient had been unable to carry out the usual detailed pre-transfer checks because the Covid lockdown prevented them from visiting the patient first to see him, review his care notes and consider whether he was well enough to travel. In the lockdown, they were reliant simply on information received in a telephone call about the patient’s condition.
It became obvious from observations of the patient’s condition after the move that the transfer itself had accelerated his deterioration.
When the deceased arrived at the client’s care home, he was barely responsive, refusing food and drink and was approaching the end of life. The question then arose as to whether the client care home could or should have done more to maintain the patient’s fluid intake, or whether they should have sought to contact emergency out of hours services over the Easter weekend?
Because of the speed of the transfer and the proximity of the Easter weekend the coroner ultimately found that there was insufficient multi-agency assessment to identify and prepare for the deceased’s future care needs.
However, in these complicated and difficult circumstances as set out, Andrew was still able to obtain a coroner’s determination of ‘death by natural causes’.
If would like one of our specialist barristers to assist you with an inquest or would like to challenge the outcome of an inquest, please contact us today.
