[2024] UKUT 427 (AAC)

At this hearing the appellant affirmed the truth of her statement to her employer, submissions to DBS, grounds of appeal and her submissions in response to the grant of permission.

In addition to the parts of her oral evidence that we have included in our account of the facts above, in answer to questions from counsel, the appellant confirmed her understanding that the CQC visit was in response to a whistleblower, but that she had not been told at the time why she was being suspended. She was not asked by managers or CQC why rooms were locked. She said the only qualified people working that night were her and the senior LS. HP was a helper not a carer. He was the boyfriend of the other carer, who was pregnant.

Regarding locked rooms, the appellant was not sure who was in which room number, but she thought the two rooms that were locked from the outside would have been residents C and M who frequently asked for their doors to be locked and who had on that night. She said that the resident that CQC heard calling out for help would have been M, that M’s door was often locked when they came on shift as M would already be in bed and the senior would say that she had requested for it to be locked. She said that the other doors locked were either because residents asked that night or they were residents who were “at the very end of their dementia, double-incontinent, could not feed themselves, would not call for help” and who “could not walk or talk”. She said “we would not have known if someone had gone in and attacked them”. They locked their doors to keep them safe from other residents who were wandering and violent.

She said that there were lots of nights when the home was short-staffed; probably about 60% of the time they only had three actual carers on duty when there should have been five. As we understood her evidence, when they were short-staffed they locked doors of those residents they regarded as particularly vulnerable as they felt they could not keep everyone safe otherwise. If someone asked for their door to be locked that was done whatever the staffing situation.

She said it was up to the senior what happened on the shift and it was up to the senior to do handover to the manager. She was asked what would happen if there was an emergency and residents had their doors locked. She responded, “if there was an emergency, they would be the first ones out in my eyes”, by which we understood her to mean she would go and get them herself. She said that doors were unlocked in the morning unless residents wanted them to stay locked. She said that she believed there were records kept of people wandering as the senior would upload photos to the handheld system.

She did not think that the locking of doors was potentially dangerous or that it should be reviewed because she thought the manager knew about it and it was the senior’s decision on each shift. She said there used to be signs on the residents’ doors that they could use to indicate whether they wanted the doors locked or not, but that these had gone as residents kept taking them. She did not know there was any particular procedure or policy to be followed in relation to locking room doors. She could not remember being provided with any training about locking doors, or any policy on it, but she thought because signs had used to be up on doors that it was part of the home policy.

Regarding the allegations of verbal abuse of residents, she said that she would call up the stairs and when in the kitchen (away from residents) she would say if a resident was “f-ing hard work”. She said she remembered saying that and “putting her head in her hands” as “when you see the dementia dipping, they are not going to get better”.

Regarding the allegation of being rude to CQC, she repeated that she spoke to them as they spoke to her, but she was not aggressive. She asked if she could phone to confirm who they were, but the woman said no, told her where to stand, spoke to her “like she was training a dog”. She could not remember having written that a resident was “nasty and unwilling to co-operate”. When her own statement was put to her, she remembered, but said that she had not dealt very much with that resident as he was very big.

In answer to questions from the panel, the appellant confirmed that she now understood that locking residents in should not be done unless requested or it was “done properly” with the right processes. She repeated that for those at the end of life doors had been locked for safeguarding reasons. She said door locking was not recorded in care notes, but she understood the senior would tell the manager in the morning. She said she knew now she had presumed too much at the time. She did not know at the time that what was being done was wrong, but she did now. She said now she would follow all proper protocols and “make sure it was up and running with safeguarding” and that “if not I would inform CQC”.

She felt confident about that now and confirmed she would inform CQC even if it meant losing her job. She said that the problem with bolting doors from the outside was that it had “put her in this situation”, but she could also understand the safety issue if there was a fire or anything like that. She could not think of any other reason why it was a problem. She was asked what if they needed help but could not call out. She said that those who had requested doors to be locked could call out. She said that the others were really “at the end of their dementia” and could not call out anyway.

Asked how she felt about the residents, she said “they were lovely, they were like family, I was there 5/6 nights a week, they were like nan and grandads – the workload was hard, we had a lot on … I loved to chat to them about what they lived and what they did in their lives and their family”.