‘How would you like to be in this dump?’: families’ horror at privately run UK care homes
After watching his girlfriend suffer in a dementia home so poor that it faced possible closure, Donald Hedges reached a simple conclusion: “It’s a robbery of taxpayers’ money.”
As it does for about a quarter of a million others in England, the state paid for Lilian Williams’ care. She lived in the privately owned Forest Edge care home in Southampton.
“It was terrible in there,” Lilian used to tell Donald, he said. “She used to lose her temper with me and say things like, ‘How would you like to be in this dump?’”
The former nurse, 78, eventually fell and broke her hip.
She is now in a different home, but Forest Edge was bleak. Last September, Care Quality Commission inspectors found a mattress soaked with urine that had been left uncleaned for days, dirty bathrooms and broken tables. There weren’t enough staff, none had completed their basic care certificate training, people were left unattended for too long, and there were unwitnessed falls. Staff tried to confine people to their chairs using tables. They rated the 32-bed home as “inadequate”, “not safe”, “not effective” and “not well led”.
Another visit in late January saw some improvements in response to previous warnings, but it remained “inadequate”.
Yet the home’s owners, John and Linda Hughes, have been profiting handsomely. Lilian’s care was paid for by Southampton city council, but the Hughes’ company also received £1.2m from Hampshire county council to look after people in the last two years. Over a similar period, the pair withdrew £652,435 in dividends, loans and salary, according to company accounts. These do not appear to be rewards for good care.
In September 2022, inspectors heard a person with dementia crying out from their room: “I want to get out. I want to go
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