Temple Court whistleblower wants action to be taken against care company

The carer who spoke out about poor care standards at Temple Court hopes further action is taken against the home’s management.

Kelly Simkins says she wants to see legal action taken against the management and registered manager of Temple Court because of poor standards of care.

In an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service last week the experienced carer revealed the poor practices at the home and said she had stayed in her job throughout the Covid outbreak because she cared about the residents. 16 residents sadly died between March and May with coronavirus.

Kelly’s accusations were corroborated in today’s damning Care Quality Commission inspection which has rated the Albert Street nursing home as inadequate and placed it in special measures.

It found residents were harmed, malnourished, not given the correct medicine and were often left in soiled sheets. It also found serious infection control problems with contaminated items not disposed of properly.

A police investigation is now ongoing. The CQC also has the power to prosecute.

Kelly, who says Temple Court was the worst home she ever lived in, said: “I would like action to be taken by the CQC. The manager was aware of the problems. But at the end of the day, when there was a complaint they (the CQC) should have gone in and checked it.”

Kelly, who worked at the home throughout the Covid crisis, believed the CQC should have acted sooner and had herself put in anonymous complaints about standards of care at the home for the 12 months prior to the home’s closure last month.

When inspectors came in she refused to speak with them or NHS or adult social care staff because she was annoyed at the way surviving residents were being quickly moved to other care homes in the area on from May 12. She said one man was moved while in the middle of his meal, one woman was woken from her bed and another dementia patient was left very upset after being told she was to move to another home. When inspectors came in 21 residents were living in the 54-bed home.

A CQC spokesman said: “Ms Simkins used CQC’s online feedback form on the evening of 19 May 2020 to provide information about the moving of people from the service. Inspectors spoke to Ms Simkins by telephone on 21 May 2020 and, with her agreement, information she provided was passed to the local clinical commissioning group.

“Inspectors have subsequently telephoned Ms Simpkins to discuss her concerns further, but have had no response.

“In addition to the contact from Ms Simkins, CQC received anonymous concerns about Temple Court. These contributed to our ongoing monitoring of the service and our decision to inspect it on 12 and 13 May 2020.”

The care company that runs Temple Court, Amicura Care, (part of the Minster Care group) has issued a strong rebuttal to the inspection report and blamed the home’s problems on the admittance of 15 NHS patients on March 19.

It says after this there was a Covid-19 outbreak in the home, which caused staff to go off ill, agency staff to be taken on and care standards to drop rapidly.