Nursing home owner and manager ‘neglected elderly residents’

A jury at Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday how police officers and NHS nurses went into the Elm View nursing home in Huddersfield Road, Halifax, in October 2011 and discovered the state of the residents.

Two women were suffering from pressure sores and prosecutor Nicholas Askins said staff told police about bad practices at the home.

Mr Askins alleged the home struggled to retain qualified nurses and did not have enough pressure-relieving mattresses.

“The prosecution case, based on the evidence of the home’s own staff, is that in the year preceding the intervention of the police the standard of pressure sore care in Elm View declined markedly.”

“This poor practice was not a latent feature of life in the home, but was there to be seen.

“The defendants knew of the bad practice.”

Mr Askins said the home’s manager Faheza Simpson, 49, was described by staff as “short-tempered” and her behaviour could be characterised as bullying.

“This is an important feature of the case as her mistreatment of the nurses and carers employed by the home caused many to leave.”

Structural engineer Philip Bentley, 65, had bought Elm View with his wife in November 1990.

The prosecution allege Simpson, of Huddersfield Road, Holmfirth, and Bentley, of Woodthorpe Drive, Wakefield, were both responsible for the neglect of Alzheimer’s sufferer Ian Ball, 68, stroke victim Phyllis Hagreen, 85, Mildred Threadgold, 81, who had Alzheimer’s and could not walk or speak, and dementia sufferer Margaret Patterson, 78.

Simpson and Bentley have pleaded not guilty to the four neglect charges which cover a period between December 2010 and October 2011.

Mr Askins alleged that residents were not taken to the toilet often enough and could be left in a soiled state.

“Similarly the ability of staff to turn residents in bed with the required regularity, every two hours, or reposition them in their chairs was adversely affected,” he added.

The jury was told that care plans became out of date and proper records were not kept.

“At one stage Faheza Simpson took away the camera used in the home to record the state of a resident’s pressure sores,” said Mr Askins.

He said dressings were not changed often enough and the home ran out of wipes for cleaning residents. The trial could last as long as six weeks.