Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber

[2024] UKUT 318 (AAC)

Fecha: 30-Jul-2024

Finding 4

Finding 4

23.

RR accepted that he did not read service users’ support plans properly; his evidence was that he relied on oral instructions from colleagues as to how to care for service users (like JP). RR accepted that he departed from service users’ usual routines in minor ways – he overlooked to give JP his coffee on one occasion; RR said that the reason he did not ask colleagues to change JP’s stoma before getting him dressed, was that there was no body waste in the collection bag at the time. RR’s evidence was that his English was adequate and there was no language barrier; but he denied not paying attention when instructed by colleagues as to how to do his job as a support worker.

24.

The key evidence on which DBS relied for Finding 4 was:

one of RR’s co-workers at the home was recorded (on 10 January 2022) as saying that:

(i)

RR did not pay attention when he was being spoken to; she had seen RR looking around and when asked shortly after what to do he had not known

(ii)

the colleague had told RR how to do something which, the next day, RR had not completed; when asked why, RR said he didn't know how

(iii)

the colleague felt that RR was not following JP’s support plan; for example, RR tried to get JP to transfer from his bed to his wheelchair in the morning; JP refused; JP's routine was to have a coffee whilst sitting on his bed and his medication prior to moving to his wheelchair

(iv)

RR had not been summonsing support when JP was ready to have his stoma changed; instead RR was dressing him fully, meaning that JP needed to be partially undressed again when changing his stoma; this upset JP;

another co-worker was recorded (also on 10 January 2022) as saying the following:

(i)

RR did not listen when things were explained to him; for example, RR was told how to administer medication for a particular service user but during the explanation he was looking around and not paying attention; the next day, when asked if he knew how to administer medication (for a different service user), RR said he did not, and had not been told

(ii)

the support worker in question was very concerned that there was a language barrier as RR was not seeming to understand what was being said

(iii)

(RR responded that he was not authorised to administer medication);

the employer’s note of a meeting with RR on 10 January 2022 recorded the employer’s view that RR was not following JP's support plan and routine e.g.

(i)

RR was trying to get JP to sit in his wheelchair before having had coffee and medication (the note said that JP liked to have his coffee and medication prior to leaving his bed);

(ii)

RR was dressing JP but not asking a trained colleague to change his stoma; this meant they needed to undress JJP again to do this; this unsettled JP.

25.

It seems to us there were communication difficulties between RR and his co-workers, on whom he relied for information for how to care for service users in accordance with their support plans and usual routines. On the evidence, we find that these communication difficulties were not because of any language barrier – we find that RR was adequately fluent in English (as he was at the hearing before us) – but rather on account of a certain independence of mind on RR’s part that made it difficult to persuade him to do things other than “his way”. We thus find, on the balance of probabilities, that the documentary evidence is accurate in recording that RR did not always pay attention to what he was told by co-workers as regards caring for the service users and, partly as a consequence, did not fully follow support users’ support plans or usual routines. The example of RR not changing JP’s stoma before dressing him is a case in point: this was a routine to which JP had grown accustomed; and yet RR did things “his way”, because he saw no reason to change the stoma when there was no refuse in the collection bag.

26.

It follows that, in our view, DBS did not make a mistake in this factual finding.