[2025] UKUT 079 (AAC)

The Appellant attended to give evidence, and Mrs Ali, a Twi interpreter, assisted. The Appellant adopted what she had said in her witness statement dated 19 February 2025 as her evidence in chief and was cross-examined by Mr Fullbrook, for the DBS.

In her evidence the Appellant said she had worked at the care home for 1 year and 10 months by the time of the Incident, and prior to that had worked for another employer in a care home for 2 years, and not been subject to any disciplinary proceedings or complaints during that time.

She confirmed she had received training in relation to her role as a care assistant. She said she performed her role “exactly how I was trained”. She said her training included training on what to do if a patient has a fall, and the proper action was to “push the emergency alarm and remain with the patient”.

The Appellant gave her account of the events of 15/16 June 2023. She explained that she was paired with JN to provide personal care to MW. JN was junior to her, was not a responsible employee. He “didn’t listen”. He was still on probation at the time of the Incident and was sacked immediately afterwards.

The Appellant went into MW’s room with JN to discover that MW’s bed was soiled. She and JN got her out of bed and sat her on a chair, which was right next to the bed. The bed was against two walls in the corner of the room. JN stood next to MW’s chair. Because MW’s bed was soiled, the Appellant started to change the sheets, which required her to reach over the bed to the far side against the wall. She therefore had her back to MW and JN. When she was changing the bed, she heard a loud noise and turned around straight away, albeit that because she was leaning over to the far side of the bed it took her more time to turn around. By the time she had turned around, JN had already picked MW up from the floor. She said “put her down”, and he put her down.

When asked by Mr Fullbrook whether, as the more senior worker, she should have intervened to stop JN lifting MW inappropriately, she said she didn’t see MW on the ground and she didn’t see JN pick her up.

At this point, the Appellant said, she raised the bed rail and informed Nurse OB what had happened. She didn’t press the emergency alarm, despite having been trained to do so, because she “panicked”. The Appellant left MW alone when she went to speak to Nurse OB, despite her training being to stay with the patient, because Nurse OB was just outside MW’s room.

The Appellant said she didn’t know what Nurse OB did after she informed her of MW’s fall. At about 11:45 pm Nurse OB called the care workers in to discuss the personal care they had given to the patients, and she asked what had happened to MW. According to the Appellant, JN said MW bumped her head on the bed rail, but didn’t mention her falling from her chair to the ground, and the Appellant accepts that she herself said nothing.

The Appellant said the reason she said nothing was that she had already told Nurse OB that MW had fallen earlier in the shift, immediately after it happened. Mr Fullbrook put to the Appellant that it made no sense for Nurse OB to be asking what had happened to MW if the Appellant had already told her what had happened. When asked by Mr Fullbrook why she didn’t correct JN’s untruthful account of what had happened to MW, the Appellant said that Nurse OB didn’t address any questions to her, and had only asked JN.

The Appellant said that when, the next morning, Nurse OB showed her bruises on MW’s legs and said that it looked like she had fallen, she had responded “yes, I told you”.

The Appellant said that Nurse OB was lying when she said that the Appellant didn’t tell her about the fall, and JN was also lying in his account when he said that it was Nurse OB who heard a noise when passing MW’s room and asked the Appellant what had happened. Her explanation for Nurse OB and JN lying and creating a false narrative together was that they were from the same country.

Mr Fullbrook asked the Appellant why she had only mentioned the call she says she received from Nurse OB on the morning of 16 June 2023 asking her to lie and to say that MW had fallen on the morning of 16 June 2023, rather than the night before, for the first time in April 2024 in her written representations to DBS. The Appellant said she had told the manager who conducted the employer’s investigation about this, but she didn’t want to hear anything about it. She said that she had raised it, but it hadn’t been written down.

When asked why she hadn’t written anything in MW’s patient records for 15/16 June 2023, she said that it wasn’t her role to do that, because MW was JN’s patient. She said she didn’t know whether he wrote anything or not.

When the handwritten incident report form completed by Nurse OB at page [51] of the appeal bundle was shown to the Appellant, which was timed at 7:55am on 16 June 2023, and it was suggested that this report was inconsistent with her account that Nurse OB had telephoned her at about 8:30am to ask her to give a different account, the Appellant said that Nurse OB was lying and this report was a fabrication. She had the same explanation for the entry in MW’s patient records at page [65] of the appeal bundle.

Under questioning from Dr Stuart-Cole the Appellant explained that each floor of the care home had 32 beds, and each room was small, with a hospital bed against wall on two sides, and a chair with arms right next to bed. She said that they had put MW in the chair and JN was supposed to stand there, as MW could get up. The Appellant said she didn’t know how MW fell out of the chair because she didn’t see her, being bent over the bed dealing with the sheets.

When asked about handover between shifts, the Appellant said it was the nurses who did handover, not carers, but she had mentioned to a colleague on the ground floor that “the lady had fallen”.

When asked why she had “panicked”, the Appellant said it was “because of the noise I heard, and I saw JN picking her up, and I knew we shouldn’t do that. I was panicking.” The sound was, she said, like “a bouncing ball”.

The Appellant said it was for JN to check his patients (and MW was his patient, and not the Appellant’s), but she checked on MW when JN went on break. She said she saw the bruise on MW’s forehead, but didn’t see bruise on leg. She said she didn’t report or record the bruise she saw on MW’s head because she had already told Nurse OB about the fall, and because it was not for her to write in JN’s patient’s records.