Hello,
There's a long backstory to this one but I'll summarise the key points:
-Grandmother has been in a care home for the last 5 years.
-She is a 'difficult' resident (their words and ours) and as well as being post-stroke she has a lot of co-morbidities and dementia. She does not have mental capacity.
-My mother has power of attorney and a DNAR has been signed. She has also been labelled as not fit for admission to hospital if it can be avoided due to her other health conditions.
-Over the last 18 months there have been serious concerns over her care in the home. 2 incidents of physical abuse which were investigated by social services and the police. The management have been quite poor in how these incidents were handled but social services were excellent. We have been confident in the last 6 months that the abuse-related issues were under control (we were led to believe that it was agency staff responsible). Whilst nobody was caught, she seemed safe and happy.
- she has had a chest infection for the last few weeks. Nothing terrible but it did require antibiotics. She was last seen for a review by the GP who visited the home early on Wednesday who prescribed an oxygen cylinder on demand for as/when she needed it. At the time her oxygen levels weren't too low but she did seem to be short of breath.
Fast forward to this evening:
My mum received a call from the nurse on site at the home at about 5pm saying that she had been monitoring my grandma's oxygen sats every 2 hours since she began her shift early that morning. In that time her oxygen sats had dropped from 88 to mid 70s and at the time when she was calling her oxygen rate was 66. Nurse was calling to let us know and also to inform my mum that the oxygen cylinder that had been My mum is in the medical profession and alarm bells began to ring. She could not believe that oxygen had not been delivered yet and shocked that the nurse had waited this long to call her. Also very shocked that the oxygen order had not been chased up by the home. Mum asked the nurse if there was anywhere they could get oxygen from and she said no. Mum asked the nurse how long somebody with oxygen sats that low would survive and she said 'not very long'. I was horrified hearing all of this.
Mum decided to call the nursing home manager who was off shift but has an emergency on call number. She had no idea about this incident and refused to do anything about it as she was busy and driving at the time. She asked my mum if she wanted her to pull over and pass on the out of hours emergency GP number and mum said yes please. She never called back.
Mum decided to call nhs 111 who said that a call had already been made by the home about my grandma. They had sent out a paramedic with oxygen. Later, mum called the home again and ask to speak to the paramedic who was fantastic but also horrified that a prescription of oxygen had not arrived 2 days after being ordered and that a registered nurse on site had let things get this bad before escalating them. The paramedic agreed to stay and give grandma oxygen for as long as she needed but said it was vital that further supplies were organised as a matter of urgency. He said to mum on the phone 'please take this to the top'.
Flash forward another few hours and the paramedic speaks to mum again saying that he only had 1 hour 1/2 left of oxygen in his cylinder and they needed more desperately for her. Mum is beside herself at this point but finally gets through to the out of hours GP who checks records and says that the correct paperwork for the order of this organised was not completed and so the original order on Wednesday had never been put through! At this stage, they may have managed to arrange some emergency oxygen from the local hospital (which is just across the road!) but we are very worried, angry and distressed.
Obviously my grandma's welfare is paramount but I feel that we really need to complain about the way this was handled as this seems to be a positively dangerous scenario that was brought about by a lot of incompetence. I also don't like the way we have been treated by care home staff. When I tried to call for an update they said they were busy and needed to keep their phone lines free.
Thank you for reading if you've got to the end: my question is what should we do in this situation?
BTW, if relevant it's a Bupa Care Home rather than an independent.