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Health and Sport Committee 26 January 2016

26 Jan 2016 · S4 · Health and Sport Committee

Item of business

Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Scanlon, Mary Con Highlands and Islands Watch on SPTV

I am grateful for the committee’s time in considering my amendments. I also thank the clerks for assisting me with the amendments. Over my years as an MSP, I have met many families who have been left with the guilt that they should have done more to protect their parents when they were in residential care. I spoke to one such lady last night, which is why I am here. She has given me permission—I am sorry; this issue is quite emotive—to use her name and her mother’s name. The woman’s name is Mrs Blan Bremner and her mother was Mrs Doreen MacIntyre, who died some time ago in the Kingsmills care home in Inverness. Rhoda Grant will be familiar with that care home. The family were concerned about their mother’s care and treatment and decided to install a tape recorder in her room. They were shocked when they played back the recording. I have read the transcripts, which is why I find the matter so upsetting. Dr Ian McNamara of the Highland senior citizens network said: “Having listened to the tapes no one could be in any doubt that abuse of an older, vulnerable adult had taken place.” I appreciate that time is limited, convener, so I will be as brief as possible. Police Scotland was given the tape. It confirmed that “staff are behaving in an unprofessional manner and making inappropriate comments”. It also said that “insulting comments made by care staff were highly inappropriate, derogatory, insensitive and fell significantly below the standards any reasonable person would expect for the care of a relative” but did not reach the “threshold set by Case Law to proceed to a criminal investigation.” Had the family installed a closed-circuit television camera, the situation would have been different. I will give an example of how the staff treated Mrs MacIntyre. When the lady asked kindly for a hand to help her, staff gave her a round of applause and they laughed at and ridiculed her. The police stated that there was no evidence of assault by care staff and no evidence to meet the threshold for cruel treatment, which they stated is essentially a serious wilful neglect offence. They also stated that the conduct of the care by staff at the Four Seasons Health Care home required investigation by the relevant agency. The family went to the Care Inspectorate. Its response was that it does not investigate alleged abuse. The family went to social work services, and the social care manager told them: “you have to move on from the issue as legally nothing can be done and it will affect your health.” The family are finding it more difficult to move on than the social work services appreciated. 10:00 The care home response was to send a letter that said that the two members of staff who had been suspended were no longer employed and that “Four Seasons Health Care bears no admission of guilt as a consequence.” I will come back to that when I speak to my next group of amendments. I told the family about the bill because I thought that it would be an opportunity to look at what could be done. I am afraid that the family were not too impressed with the reference to “wilful neglect”, and they pointed out the difference between neglect and abuse. To neglect is to pay little or no attention and to fail to care for or attend to properly, whereas to abuse is to hurt or injure by maltreatment, to assail with insulting or hurtful words or to use insulting or hurtful language and speak insultingly or cruelly. In my view, “abuse” clearly describes the experience at that care home—and it is not the first time that we have heard of such abuse in a care home in Scotland. In my book, many of the problems that arise from poor care standards are not simply neglect—they are abuse. I lodged the amendments to seek clarity on the issue, given that the bill is a unique opportunity to put in place something to help to protect elderly, frail and vulnerable people. I move amendment 18.

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Health and Sport Committee 26 January 2016

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