A CARE home in West Oxfordshire has been reprimanded after a woman fell out of bed twice on its watch.

Details of the complaint against the care home at Richmond retirement village near Witney have come to light in a report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman, a public watchdog, said a woman her 80s who stayed at the Bupa-run home for a week of respite care in March 2019 'suffered injustice' because a risk assessment for falls was not carried out.

The woman, named only as Mrs X in the report, stayed at the home for a week of respite care while one of her daughters who cared for her was on holiday.

The daughter said her holiday was 'ruined' when she was called about what happened out of the blue.

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Her other daughter, named as Mrs A, made the complaint after her mother’s week at the home.

Though Mrs X has died since the complaint was made, her daughter asked for the investigation to continue.

Mrs X had a history of falls at home, and was living with Parkinson’s disease, associated dementia and cardiac problems.

A nurse visited her at home ahead of her stay at Richmond Village and was told about this and the measures her family had put in place to prevent falls, including a motion sensor, a baby alarm and a pager.

On March 27, two days after Mrs X was admitted to the care home, she suffered a fall from bed in the night.

A senior agency carer was on duty and found her lying on the floor next to her bed, but he did fill out out a risk assessment form of what happened properly.

On March 30, the same carer found Mrs X lying on the floor next to her bed, and she told him she had fallen while turning over.

The carer noticed a bruise on Mrs X's shoulder, gave her painkillers and called 111, but again, sections of a form to record this were not filled out properly.

Rather than call Mrs A, the carer decided to call Mrs X's other daughter to tell her about their mother's fall.

According to the Ombudsman's report, Mrs A had told the care home to contact her as the first point of contact, and said the phone call had 'ruined her sister’s holiday'.

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After Mrs X's two falls she had bruising around her left eye, hip and upper arm, and her daughter Mrs A decided to take her out of Richmond Village a day early because she 'did not feel it was safe for her mother to stay any longer'.

The family was reimbursed £185.71 of the £1,300 they spent on the week of respite care.

But the family was not satisfied with how the care home had dealt with the complaint, so contacted the Ombudsman.

The watchdog ordered the home's senior manager to apologise in writing to Mrs A and pay her £300 compensation to 'recognise her distress and inconvenience'.

Bev Ingram, operations manager for Richmond Villages, said: “We’re committed to providing safe and compassionate care and are very sorry that we fell short of our standards in this instance. We have apologised to the family and have made a number of changes to prevent this happening again.”

Over the last 18 months since Mrs X's stay, the care home has also appointed an experienced new Head of Care and recruited more new permanent staff, meaning it relies less on agency staff.

When it does use agency workers, a spokesman for the home said it now relies on 'trusted members who’ve worked with us before'.

The care home has also provided more training for record-keeping and started preparing care plans ahead of a resident's stay.