Tag Archives: Holmwood House

HOLMWOOD HOUSE: CARE QUALITY COMMISSION TOOTHLESS

The CQC is supposedly the independent regulator for inspecting health and social care settings so that the vulnerable remain safe from harm and exploitation in care homes and the like.

They became famous in the wake of the WINTERBOURNE VIEW home scandal, where animals masquerading as human care workers routinely abused adults with learning difficulties. The situation was highlighted by BBC’s PANORAMA using a hidden camera. The CQC came later.

When Bristol City Council closed all their residential care homes for the elderly in 2013 due to cuts, they promised that the existing residents would be transferred to safe care settings.

“Don’t worry,” they said,” the CQC will INSPECT AND CLOSE any homes that do not reach tough standards.”

What a load of bollox. As the BRISTOLIAN’s investigation of Holmwood House has revealed, the home has failed every inspection for the last five years, killed a resident and is now subject to legal action but it’s still open for business!

The CQC web site says that there are currently 77 settings classed as ‘INADEQUATE’ and 316 ‘NEEDING IMPROVEMENT’. Which is just funky unless it’s your nan lying all day in her own urine, hoping that somebody will turn her over to ease the bed sores. Why don’t they shut these homes?

The answer is LACK OF PROVISION. Councils have been forced to shut all their homes. So if inspectors suggest closure, the money grabbing care home bosses supported by council bosses say, “OK. Fine. But where are you going to put the residents?”

Look at Holmwood House with over 100 residents, many placed there by Bristol City Council. The truth is that dodgy care home bosses have FREE REIN to rake in money by paying care workers a pittance in under staffed settings while the vulnerable suffer and in some cases die.

This comes after the elderly have paid their national insurance all their lives and, sometimes, have had to sell their homes to pay for their abuse.

And it will continue because nobody cares unless you start caring.

DON’T MENTION THE WAR!

The publication of a report into the death of Kathleen Cole who passed away within days of leaving “THE HOUSE OF HORRORS” – Holmwood House care home – in 2013 (BRISTOLIAN passim) saw our posh Green councillors go on the attack … Criticising, er, WORKING CLASS Bristolians for their use of language!

The recently completed independent report commissioned by Bristol City Council upheld FOUR complaints by Mrs Cole’s daughter, Annette Whiting, arising from her mother’s death.
Bristol City Council also had to APOLOGISE to Annette for failing to explain to her how their care system operated and how she might have effectively complained to them to get something done while her mother was still alive.

Instead Annette was allowed by council bosses to be SHUNNED by Holmwood
House who depicted her as a “TROUBLE-MAKER”. The home then restricted her ability to visit her mother and her movements around the care home while the home basically set about killing her mum through disgraceful mistreatment and neglect under the noses of indifferent council bosses.

In 2013 Bristol City Council wholly accepted Holmwood’s House’s view of Annette as a “troublemaker” and her efforts to communicate concerns to the council were THWARTED by the council bosses’ refusal to respond to correspondence or to return phone calls. By the time the council did respond and agree to move Mrs Coles from their hell home, it was too late and Mrs Coles was DEAD within ten days.

It should also be noted that FOUR safeguarding concerns were raised to the council by professionals with regard to Kathleen in the space of EIGHT months in 2012-13. And the home FAILED seven CQC inspections in two years (2011-13) while Kathleen lived there. Surely this should have given credibility to Annette’s complaints and concerns, not led to her being ostracised?

Given these startling facts, a member of the public, our old friend Steve Norman who originally exposed the scandal in 2013, took it upon himself to send councillors a copy of this report to highlight what has been happening in their elderly care service.

The email to councillors used some COLOURFUL LANGUAGE comparing council bosses and Mayor Murder’s illicit elderly care policies to genocide. Or more specifically to Adolf Hitler!
So it didn’t take long for a response to come from snooty green cabinet member Dani “HELL” Radice. “I find your reference to the Mayor as Adolf Hitler deeply offensive, along with all your comments about council officers, and so will not be entering intofurther correspondence,” she stormed.

She was supported by the Green’s latest posh Lib Dem turncoat Fi “LA-DI-DAH” Hance who spat back, “I concur with Cllr Radice’s comments. Please do not contact me again.”

So a big defence on pretty slim grounds of Mayor Kill-The-Poor and his culpable bosses here and no sign of any concern whatsoever that a working class Bristolian has been consigned to their grave by the conduct of the council they run. What a pair of charmers!

However, if this pair of gormless posh cows ever get their thick heads out of their politically correct arses they might want to think about this admission from their own managers in the report: “Bristol City Council does not have a threshold which would stop the Council commissioning care.”

In other words once these councillors have let their managers dump our elderly into their shit privatised death homes they have no way of getting them out again, regardless of what is happening to them.

And let’s remember that Kathleen Cole was sexually assaulted – effectively tortured – by pervy nurse, CECILE JOSEPH, who had a fetish for administering enemas to the vulnerable elderly.

But obviously institutionalised abuse resulting in DEATH is a mere trifle compared to mentioning Adolf Hitler in an email or being a bit rude about our posh mayor and a couple of useless middle managers.

Nice to see what the Greens’ priorities are, isn’t it?

THE ELECTION SECTION – MAY 2014 PREVIEW!

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STORMIN’ NORMAN

Firebrand social care campaigner and friend of The BRISTOLIAN, Mr STEVE ‘STORMIN’ NORMAN, who’s recently been shaking things up at the council and elsewhere over the Holmwood House scandal, has declared he will be running for council as an independent candidate for Avonmouth in the May local elections.

This might disappoint Labour, who have their old stager JOHN ‘BUMBLE’ BEES lined up and would be hoping to keep the seat, currently held by their washed-up ex-MP, Doug Naysmith.

Norman will be running on a ticket attacking the council’s abysmal record in social care, which as well as embarrassing the city council may well expose Labour’s COULDN’T-GIVE-A-TOSS-PRIVATISE-THE-LOT attitude to social care in the city.

JANKE QUITS

Meanwhile, the current cabinet boss for social care, BARBARA JANKE will announce she will not be running for her Clifton seat again.

Janke has had little influence in changing the dismal quality of residential social care provided by private providers in the city and instead has been acting as little more than a mouthpiece for council managers determined to cover up the lethal state of privatised residential care in the city.

A suitably fitting damp squib finale for this politician of the second rank.

PAEDOS AND FOGHORNS

Over in the alternative universe occupied by INDYREDPANTS FOR BRISTOL – the political party that says it’s not a political party – it looks like business as usual to us with the endorsement by IfB of Stella Perrett as its candidate in Redland.

She, you may recall, is a close former friend and associate of disgraced local Lib Dem kiddie porn aficionado councillor John Astley, who in 2004 was convicted for his paedo peccadilloes – as well as a number of electoral fraud charges which, err, The Artist Formerly Known As Stella Hender also faced!

Meanwhile, the Redpants’ foghorn-voiced closet Tory boss, Mayor Fergo’s pal STEPHEN ‘UNSPARKLING’ PERRY, has “fast-tracked” himself to become the candidate for Clifton, effectively replacing one enormously embarrassing candidate – BRENDA ‘WISE MONKEY’ MCLENNAN, the Analphoney’s innumerate bean counter – with another enormously embarrassing candidate – himself!

This new politics looks strangely like the old politics, doesn’t it?

70% OF BRISTOLIANS CAN’T BE WRONG?

The local elections take place on Thursday 22 May 2014, along with the non-event of the European elections.

As many as 70% of people in Bristol will not vote. And who can really blame them?

Will it make any difference?

WHY PRIVATISATION MATTERS TO EVERYONE…

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Writes The BRISTOLIAN‘s Social Care Correspondent:

So what’s this privatisation of public services thing all about, then?

Well, If you believe the papers, it’s the improvement of services because the workers who deliver them presently are lazy, incompetent, uneconomical and probably have a better pension than you. What a load of arse!

For starters most of the companies that are bidding to run our services also have shares in the media companies that peddle this one-sided MISINFORMATION.

The privatisation of public services means that large companies are providing services for the sick, elderly and vulnerable for financial gain. They have a legal duty towards their shareholders to MAXIMISE PROFIT – a duty that outweighs the rights of the service users or staff, who are often untrained, under resourced and on zero hours contracts with few checks on their background.

We are told that quangos like the Care Quality Commission monitor privatised care Well, they’ve inspected Holmwood House on numerous occasions and the home has FAILED EVERY TIME but they’ve been allowed to carry on regardless and people have died in the meantime.

After you’ve worked all your life and paid your National Insurance, you’d be hoping for some kindness and care with dignity. Tough. In all likelihood you’ll be laying there with your pyjamas round your ankles waiting for some sixteen year old on the Minimum Wage to perform a bowel evacuation on you. Her first time… Just like yours!

After all, they don’t want you being a nuisance and SHITTING YOURSELF because you’re in bed all day with nobody to take you to the toilet.

Meanwhile all that money you raised by selling your house to pay for it will wing its way to the Cayman Islands accounts of a private ‘care provider’. Fucking perky!

Let’s get down the Council House and do a bowel evacuation on those that are flogging off our care and see how they like it.

Anybody fancy some BRISTOLIAN-branded rubber gloves..?

FORGED DRUG RECORDS CLAIMS AT ‘HORROR HOUSE’ NURSING HOME HOLMWOOD

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As part of our ongoing investigation local private care home of horrors HOLMWOOD HOUSE, where we have reported the concerns of family members over several resident deaths and allegations of neglect, The BRISTOLIAN has taken delivery of a large bundle of medical documents. These relate to the management and distribution of controlled drugs there in 2013 – when the home was briefly managed by a State Registered Nurse (SRN), SIMONE SMITH.

We understand that the police have studied these documents and confirmed that a considerable number of them contain FORGED SIGNATURES. At present it is unclear who was responsible for the forgeries, as the police appear to have discontinued their inquiry.

Also in the bundle is evidence of a DRUG AUDIT ordered by then-manager Smith which was conducted by struck-off nurse ISLA MEEK, who was working at the home as a “consultant”.

There’s little doubt Meek did the work, as the audit was produced on the headed business paper of ‘Isla Meek Consulting’. Obviously, a struck-off nurse should not be involved in any way in the management of controlled drugs at a nursing home.

in a further extraordinary twist, Smith is now using these dodgy drug audits herself as evidence to get another former nurse from the home STRUCK OFF by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). A hearing is expected later this year.

Smith left Holmwood House in the Autumn of 2013 and is now employed by Four Seasons Healthcare as a manager at OAKTREE CARE HOME in Yate. Four Seasons Healthcare rejects any claims of wrongdoing regarding Smith, and told The BRISTOLIAN that Bristol City Council’s Safeguarding Team have described Smith as “a whistleblower”!

Although, as far as we can tell, the only whistleblowing Smith could have done would be in regards to her own management of controlled drugs.

Forged drug records? Bent audits? The Holmwood House affair gets a whole lot murkier…

PRESS RELEASE: HOLMWOOD HOUSE

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Expert lawyers investigating the death of a woman who received treatment from a nurse at a Bristol care home who is being investigated over allegations of abuse have called for an inquest to be held into the pensioner’s death to investigate the care she was given.

Serious injury experts at law firm Irwin Mitchell’s Bristol office are representing Annette Whiting, the daughter of Kathleen Cole, who died in August last year after being under the care of Holmwood House Nursing Home in Westbury-On-Trym for five years.

Lawyers at Irwin Mitchell have now written to HM Coroner for Avon, Maria Voisin, requesting an inquest is held into the 77-year-old’s death, as they believe the results of a number of internal investigations into standards at the home and Mrs Cole’s care require further inquiry.

Her cause of death was initially recorded as being from natural causes but a post-mortem carried out before she was cremated resulted in the cause of death being altered to pneumonia.

Lawyers have seen notes taken during an internal meeting after Mrs Cole’s death which revealed issues with nutrition and hydration, manual handling, skin care and management, administration of medication, failures to manage a pressure sore and a failure to diagnose pneumonia prior to her transfer to Westbury Nursing Home from Holmwood House.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the BBC in January found there have been eight substantiated allegations of abuse or neglect at Holmwood House in the last two years.

Jonathan Peacock, Regional Managing Partner and specialist abuse lawyer at Irwin Mitchell’s Bristol office is representing Annette.

Jonathan Peacock says,

We have reviewed a number of investigations into the care Mrs Cole received and believe factors included inadequate training, qualifications, management and supervision need exploring further.

“We are calling on the Coroner on behalf of Annette to hold an inquest into Mrs Cole’s death as she would like answers about whether more could have been done to prevent her mother’s suffering and subsequent death.

“We also have questions about how many other patients may have been affected and we believe an inquest would assist in gaining answers about this.”

Holmwood House stopped admitting patients with nursing needs under what was described as a “voluntary” arrangement. It followed a risk assessment by the council and a suspension of all admissions from June until August last year.

Among Annette’s concerns are that her mother was given an enema which she believes was unnecessary and left her mother distressed. The nurse, Cicily Joseph, was found guilty of assault – a verdict later overturned on appeal. She resigned from Holmwood after being suspended.

However, a council investigation upheld an allegation of abuse and Ms Joseph remains under investigation by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Annette, 54, from Seamills, said: “My mum deserved to be treated with dignity and respect and I thought she was in the safest place possible at Holmwood House with people who were used to providing her specific care needs.

“I feel that I now owe it to my mum to get answers about her care and I believe an inquest is the only way to do this. I am also worried about other residents’ treatment and would like to know that everything possible is being done by the home to improve the failures identified by the CQC.”

Read more about Irwin Mitchell’s expertise relating to abuse and neglect claims

“WE ARE WINNING!” HOW CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES, TIPSTERS & WHISTLEBLOWERS HELPED ‘THE BRISTOLIAN’ BREAK THE BIG NEWS IN THE CITY…

HORSEWORLD

We originally exposed £80k-per-year HorseWorld boss Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen’s madcap plans to fund his ailing equine charity by building on the greenbelt back in May.

We’ve subsequently reported how his plans were rejected by a BANES planning committee and how the overpaid and under-performing charity boss now plans to stay put – despite his DISASTROUS MANAGEMENT – whilst making dedicated animal welfare staff redundant, closing the revenue-generating Visitor Centre, and generally running the whole operation down.

Hopefully this story will not end on that note, though…

CITY ACADEMY

Also in May we revealed that a row over racism was breaking out at the city’s most multicultural school.

This was confirmed in January when an employment tribunal found that a black member of staff had been refused a management post for a project to raise attainment among black kids at the school due to INSTITUTIONAL RACISM. The £43k job instead went to a white teacher – thus maintaining an all-white management team at a school, 70% of whose pupils come from a BME background.

HOLMWOOD HOUSE

We exposed this privately run for-profit ’HOME OF HORRORS’ back in December.

Since then the care home’s multiple problems have been reported by BBC Bristol, the Nazi Post, Bristol 24/7 and now nationally on BBC Radio 5.

WELLINGTON HILL PLAYING FIELDS

Following our report in November about council managers using outright lies to try to block this open space in Bishopston from being protected as a public amenity, the council has executed a rapid u-turn and registered the land as a ‘Town Green’.

Clearly senior council bosses decided that sending junior managers in to a quasi-judicial setting to tell porkie pies on their behalf was not going to work any longer.

We have also learned that hold-ups in the voluntary registration of land at Laundry Fields in Fishponds have vanished since The BRISTOLIAN highlighted them.

…So a big THANK YOU to all of the whistleblowers, well-placed sources and tipsters.

Without your inside information we would not be able to EXPOSE Bristol’s bent bosses, incompetent council chiefs or hypocrites in high office.

Together we CAN make a difference and build a better city for all!

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOLMWOOD: ANOTHER POINTLESS INVESTIGATION EXPOSED!

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THE BRISTOLIAN has been passed sensational information from a Freedom of Information request that reveals that there was a major, unpublicised investigation regarding the safeguarding of residents at the ‘The House of Horrors’, HOLMWOOD HOUSE last year.

According to information contained in the response to the request, an investigation took place at the home in May 2013 and it involved Bristol City Council, the police, the NHS and the home itself. The reason for the investigation is listed as “physical abuse and neglect through medication error (x4)”, which suggests that, yet again, serious issues in the dispensing of medicines have arisen at the home and that other residents at the home have been abused.

The outcome of the investigation, as usual, was a fudge with the council concluding, even after their intervention, that “some areas show improvement seen (sic) but inconsistencies are now being addressed through a specialist support team.”

The report also tell us that Holmwood instituted a voluntary ban on all admissions between 3 June 2013 and 23 August 2013 while Bristol City Council were supposedly monitoring the home. This is the period in which AN ELDERLY WOMAN DIED twelve days after leaving their care, having inexplicably lost her swallowing reflex and one third of her body weight.

So it looks like a safeguarding investigation took place at the home just prior to this death and seemingly no lessons were really learned and opportunities were missed. It makes you wonder what it would take for the owners and managers of the home to be prosecuted and for the dump to be shut down.

Will the authorities tolerate absolutely anything in their godforsaken private care homes?

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOLMWOOD: THIS IS WHAT ABUSE LOOKS LIKE

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When Kathleen Cole was removed from Holmwood House care home (see The BRISTOLIAN passim), the new home into which she was placed was so concerned about the state she was in that they took a series of photos to carefully record the clearly-visible injuries that she had suffered.

With the permission of Kathleen’s daughter, we publish here a selection of those photos.