Managers at a scandal-hit nursing home “dehumanised” and “warehoused” vulnerable residents, a coroner who has overseen an inquest into the deaths of six men and women has said.
The assistant coroner for Gwent, Geraint Williams, accused the owners and staff at the Brithdir nursing home in New Tredegar, south Wales of a “gross betrayal of the trust” placed in them by relatives of those in their care.
Williams concluded that neglect contributed to the deaths of five people, June Hamer, 71, Stanley Bradford, 76, Edith Evans, 85, Evelyn Jones, 87, and William Hickman, 71, between 2003 and 2005. He said a sixth resident, Stanley James, 89, died from natural causes.
During a six week inquest in Newport, south Wales, the court heard that some Brithdir residents were suffering from dehydration, malnourishment and pressure sores when they were admitted to hospital.
Bradford’s daughter, Gaynor Evans, told the inquest that when she saw her father without his clothes on he looked like a prisoner of war.
Jones’s granddaughter, Ruth Phillips, said she was shocked when she saw a pressure sore on her grandmother’s back. “This sore had an open wound about the size of a five-pence piece. Within this wound I could see what I thought was bone,” she said.
One former staff member said she saw a care worker draw a moustache with a permanent marker on the face of a female resident.
Another said she witnessed a man being changed naked from the waist down in a day room in front of fellow residents.
Williams said experts who had given evidence to the inquest believed people were being “warehoused”. He said: “Residents were simply kept and were being fed and watered with the bare minimum being done and then the staff going home. I accept without hesitation that description of the philosophy.”
The coroner said the incident in which a resident was changed naked from the waist down showed that they were being “dehumanised”.
Brithdir was one of a group of 24 care homes owned by GP Prana Das and his Puretruce Health Care company.
Charges were brought against Das following a police investigation but his trial collapsed after he suffered severe head injuries in an aggravated burglary. He died last year aged 73.
Das had been the subject of complaints about his homes dating back to the mid-1990s and there had been a long history of involvement with the authorities.
The inquest heard that social workers failed to carry out regular assessment of residents being funded by Caerphilly county borough council, with senior managers admitting “systemic failings” and conceding it was “quite possible” they should have taken tougher action much earlier against Das.
