Death in the care home

The sad truth is that quite often residents die in care homes, this is to be expected as they are usually in their final years upon admission. If, however, the cause of death could be due to poor care or neglect then there is an obvious liability issue. The care provider has an obvious duty of care towards their residents. It is extremely rare that a prolonged situation, such as removal of food and drink is the cause, however, if the night staff are constantly being bothered by a resident’s alarm there is the temptation to turn it off or put it out of reach, if the person dies during the night, then it is easy to move the cord back and pretend that nothing happened. It is these situations that are impossible to prove, after all, what evidence of neglect exists. More often a person dies from an injury sustained from a fall, or the malfunction of a hoist etc.

 

Cases of death that take place in care homes or nursing homes belong to clinical negligence claims. Claimants can be the family of the victim or any person legally connected to the victim as a custodian. The claimant can claim against the question care home based upon the wrongful death and ask compensation for:

• Funeral expenses,
• Ad hoc expenses arising from the incident; and
• Compensation for the pain that they have suffered as a result of the loss.

If you suspect foul play, in any regard then you need to act quickly as evidence, the patient`s care notes and witnesses’ memories (or instructions on what to remember from management) fade quickly. Your first point of call should be the Police

 

How we can help

Lestons can assist the police with their investigation, however, in practice, we would normally stand aside to let them do their job unless they need an expert analysis for medication tests etc where our experts may be more readily available. If the home is found guilty then we step in to file damages (compensation) claims, these do not bring your loved one back but do impart a sense of justice. Once you have informed the police then we would suggest you obtain their lead contact and open a case informing us of their contact information. To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link.

 

Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.