HSE warns carers as BUPA lands fine for training failures

Date:

3 September 2009

Release No:

HSE/YH/330/2009

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning carers and care home operators to ensure they follow the correct training and procedures for moving and handling elderly, frail or disabled patients.

It follows the successful prosecution today (3 September) of BUPA Care Homes (CFH Care) Limited, which was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,500 costs by Wakefield magistrates after an 80-year quadriplegic fell from bed whilst being dressed by a lone, inexperienced care assistant.

Muriel Lindley suffered fractures to both legs in the fall at West Ridings Nursing Home, on Lingwell Gate Lane, Lofthouse, on 13 July last year. She was admitted to Pinderfields Hospital where she died nine days later.

BUPA, which owns the Lofthouse home, pleaded guilty to a Section 3(1) breach of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 in relation to the incident.

Magistrates heard that Mrs Lindley, a resident on the Swaledale Unit, was able to fall from her bed after protective guard rails were lowered to get her undressed, washed and redressed for the day ahead.

This procedure, which requires a degree of rolling, should always be carried out by two properly trained carers, as was clearly defined in health and safety policies at the home and written assessments of the patient's individual care needs.

However Mrs Lindley was instead tended to by a lone employee with limited knowledge and training in the moving and handling of residents.

The employee in question had only started work on the unit six days earlier and didn't complete the necessary formal training on patient handling until 22 July - the day Mrs Lindley died.

Following the hearing HSE inspector Paul Robinson commented:

"This prosecution should serve as a reminder to all carers, management and care home operators of what can happen when the correct training and procedures aren't adhered to - and why such policies and guidelines are put in place to safeguard patients in the first place."

Notes to editors

1. Regulation 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety."
2. HSE information and news releases can be accessed online at www.hse.gov.uk/press

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Issued on behalf of the hse by COI Yorkshire and the Humber.