The owners of a Stamford care home where an elderly woman died have been fined £140,000 and ordered to pay £65,000 costs.
Staff at the Whitefriars Care Home in St George’s Avenue failed to notice that pensioner Dorothy Spicer, 84, had gone missing on the evening of November 25, 2009.
She was found eight hours later lying on the ground in the garden of the home, still wearing her day clothes.
Mrs Spicer had apparently walked out of a door which had its alarm disabled. No check had been carried out to establish the whereabouts of any resident when the day shift handed responsibility over to the night shift.
The alarm system should have triggered pager messages to staff if a resident left the premises, but this did not happen because the individual door alarm was switched off.
⚠️ Two failures, one night: The door alarm was disabled and no resident whereabouts check took place at shift handover. Both safety measures existed — neither functioned.
Mrs Spicer was discovered at 5:20 am. Staff took her inside and tried to warm her up — but no ambulance was called for another 80 minutes.
When she was finally admitted to Peterborough Hospital, she was suffering from hypothermia. She never fully recovered, and although later transferred to Stamford Hospital, she passed away two months later in January 2010.
In this case there were corporate, systematic and procedural failings which were ultimately a significant and substantial cause of Mrs Spicer’s death.
Bernard Thorogood, prosecuting for South Kesteven District Council, said Mrs Spicer was last noticed at 8:30 pm sitting in her usual chair in a communal lounge. No one saw her leave.
“This was exposure of vulnerable residents of a care home to avoidable risks,” Mr Thorogood said. “The investigation found failings that were corporate, systematic and procedural.”
He added: “There was a lack of adequate leadership — a failing by management at the care home and from higher up within the trust.”
At Lincoln Crown Court, The Order of St John Care Trust admitted failing to ensure the safety of Mrs Spicer, in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Judge Michael Heath said the trust “fell far short of providing a safe standard. Serious injury or worse was plainly foreseeable.”
It is only a matter of good fortune that no tragedy occurred before that which befell Mrs Spicer.
📊 The penalty: £140,000 fine plus £65,000 costs — totalling £205,000 — for what the judge labelled “corporate, systematic and procedural failings.”
Prashant Popat QC, in mitigation, said the trust had an exemplary health and safety record prior to the incident and had taken all steps to ensure a similar tragedy did not happen again. “Its health and safety record is excellent,” he told the court. “The tragic incident involving Mrs Spicer is the first in its 22-year history.”
John Smith (Con), the district council’s portfolio holder for healthy environment, said: “We hope that the sentence sends out a clear message that care for the elderly must improve so that avoidable events like the tragic incident involving Mrs Spicer — and the suffering her family have had to endure — cannot happen again.”
Source: Stamford Mercury
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