Former nursing home manager fined £40,000 after death of two residents

A former nursing home manager has been fined £40,000 after pleading guilty to two offences of failing to provide safe care and treatment to two residents at Rossendale Nursing Home in Lancashire.

Caroline Taylforth, who established her first residential care home in 1997, was prosecuted by the CQC. She was the registered manager at Rossendale Nursing Home at the time of the incidents, and admitted mistakes she had made that meant two residents did not receive safe care and treatment, and resulted in "avoidable harm" while in her care, said a CQC spokesperson.

The first offence was for failures in the care of resident Patricia Sutton, aged 77, who was admitted to the home on 11 October 2018 and had a significant medical history. On 6 November 2019, Patricia Sutton was eating dinner in the dining room and started choking. She was taken to hospital and died later that day. Ms Sutton had previously been involved in three other choking incidents and should have been referred to a speech and language therapist after the second one occurred to properly assess the risks, said the CQC. However, Ms Taylforth "did not safely assess, monitor or manage the risk or make this referral", the CQC concluded.

The CQC also prosecuted Ms Taylforth for another incident concerning Dereck John Chapman, aged 82, who was admitted to the home on 22 October 2019 with multiple health issues and was also prone to having falls. Following admission to the home, Mr Chapman suffered at least 14 falls. Ms Taylforth "failed to mitigate" the risk of falls and "failed to ensure" Mr Chapman was promptly referred to appropriate services, such as the falls team, GP, and local authority following known incidents, particularly those resulting in injuries, criticised the CQC.

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Source: Medscape, 6 April 2023