Council ordered to pay family thousands over ‘appalling’ treatment of care home resident

The women was “covered in a filthy towel and in a distressed state”, she wrote.

She was also “soiled, soaking wet with urine and had scratched her legs so badly that they had bled all over the sheets”.

As a result of what Dr Martin called this “particularly appalling incident”, they moved Mrs J at their own expense to another home.

Now the ombudsman has ruled that the city council’s own investigation into her care, which directly blamed the care home, amounted to maladministration.

She said the city council, as the commissioner of care was responsible for it.

She ordered the council to apologise, pay Mrs J’s son £500 for the distress caused, compensate him fully for the additional outlay in moving his mother, and pay Mrs J an additional £6,000 “in recognition of the council’s failings in providing a suitable standard of care”.

Alison Comley, strategic director for health and social care for Bristol City Council, said: ““We are very clear that we accept the Ombudsman’s report and recommendations in full and apologise unreservedly to the family.

“As a commissioner of care services, we take our safeguarding and duty of care responsibilities very seriously. The lessons from this report are that while we did investigate and act to address concerns raised in 2008/09, our response was not adequate or robust enough.

“The action plan developed to deliver improvements has already been shared with the family and I shall personally ensure that we continue to monitor the issues raised in this report and update the ombudsman and family accordingly.”