Two high-profile deaths have prompted the city council to offer free safety advice and inspections at Oxford’s care homes.

The city, and all of Oxfordshire’s district councils, have teamed up with the Health and Safety Executive in a campaign to make such facilities safer.

In June 2003, 82-year-old Maisie Jones died after falling from the window of Brookfield Christian Care Home in Little Bury, Greater Leys. Last month, Southern Cross Healthcare was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £120,000 costs after admitting two breaches of health and safety regulations. An inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death.

In August 2007, 18-year-old Yelena Hasselberg-Langley was fatally scalded after being lowered into a bath at the Lifeways Community Care facility in Owens Way, Cowley. An inquest recorded a narrative verdict.

John Tanner, the city council’s board member for a cleaner, greener Oxford, said: “There have been two high-profile accidents in the city which have resulted in the death of vulnerable people in residential care homes.

“These have included the scalding of a resident from bath water being too hot and a resident falling from a window with a faulty safety catch.

“This campaign will see us working with the HSE to offer advice to care home operators to help prevent these accidents happening.

“Where necessary, we will use enforcement to protect this potentially vulnerable part of our community.”

Over the past two years there have been more than 11,000 work-related accidents in care homes in the UK, of which 34 resulted in the deaths of service users.