Daughter 'made to wait as mother died alone'

An elderly woman died alone in a care home while her daughter was left waiting in a nearby room, an ombudsman says.

When the daughter went into her mother's room at the Puttenham Hill House Care Home in Guildford, Surrey, she found she had died.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said the care home had not protected the woman's dignity. Surrey County Council has apologised to the family for the distress caused.

The council had arranged and funded the woman's care at the Bupa-run home.

A Bupa spokesman said it had apologised to the family and introduced "comprehensive measures" to prevent such a situation happening again.

The woman's daughter had complained she had been called too late to the care home when her condition deteriorated in August 2019.

When she arrived she was left in a waiting area and not told her mother was seriously ill, the ombudsman said. When she went into her mother's room 15 minutes later it was apparent her mother had died, and she found dried blood on the floor and oxygen pipes in her mother's nose.

The agency nurse looking after the woman never spoke to the daughter, the ombudsman said.

An inquest found the woman died from a brain haemorrhage, which would have been difficult to spot.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: "The daughter was not able to be with her mother as she died and her mother should not have been alone in the final moments of her life."

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Source: BBC News, 23 March 2021