MPs want probe into care homes

A company which runs six care homes in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale is facing calls for a Government inquiry amid allegations that elderly residents have been neglected.
A group of MPs has demanded an urgent investigation into standards at homes run by Southern Cross, the country’s biggest private provider.

Southern Cross owns six care homes in Rochdale — Ferngrove House on Halifax Road, Heywood Court Care Centre on Green Lane in Heywood, Hulton Care Nursing Home on Clark Brow in Middleton, Langfield Nursing and Residential Home on Wood Street in Middleton, Middleton Hall Care Home on Grimshaw Lane in Middleton and Oakland on Bury Road. None of these homes are involved in any of the allegations.

Southern Cross owns more than 700 across Britain and nationally it has been rocked by a series of alleged scandals, including:

The deaths of eight out of 16 residents in two weeks at an Oxfordshire home, after they were left without central heating for up to 10 days

The death of a 97-year-old at a home near Reading, amid claims she developed pneumonia after being left without heating.

A £175,000 fine after a 69-year-old resident suffocated in bed at a home in Walsall.

An £80,000 fine after an 82-year-old woman with dementia died after falling from a first-floor window at an Oxford home.

A total of £68,000 in fines and costs after an 89-year-old woman died in a bed accident at a home in Telford, Shropshire.

Now 19 MPs have signed a parliamentary motion which states that some local authorities are refusing to place elderly residents in Southern Cross homes, because of their “poor standards”.

The motion reads: “Providing elderly citizens with high quality care that maintains a dignity of life should be a primary concern of any society.

“This House is extremely alarmed at these allegations of neglect and urges the Government to take urgent action to launch an independent investigation into the standards of care in residential homes run by Southern Cross.”

The first two deaths listed here are already being investigated, either by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, or the police, but the MPs want a much wider inquiry. Southern Cross refused to comment on calls for an investigation into its homes, or on claims that some local authorities had blacklisted the company.

Instead, a spokeswoman focused on the allegations surrounding the death in Reading, insisting John McDonnell MP, who tabled the motion, was “not aware of the facts”.

She added: “The death certificate of the lady in question shows that the cause of death was from bronchopneumonia and local authorities are satisfied that the heating was operating correctly before, during and after her death.”

Southern Cross Healthcare, which was valued at £1.1bn earlier this year, has been prosecuted five times in the past seven years.

Last year, it suffered a dramatic fall in its share price — losing nearly three-quarters of its value in a single day — and announced a £22.9m annual loss, but has since recovered some lost ground.