[quote RosesAndHellebores]@NewspaperTaxis he's my MP too so you can't be far away from me. I can agree he was a poor minister and I'm tempted to break into a rendition of "we three ships" every time I see him but when we had tremendous issues securing MH care for dd he was marvellously helpful. So my experience is that he is a good constituency MP and I've heard from many people that he has helped them greatly.[/quote]
Well, if you're from Epsom & Ewell you may remember this story in the local paper a few years ago:
www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/epsom/15047489.fast-tracked-for-the-morgue-vulnerable-mother-not-checked-overnight-by-care-home-staff-could-have-drowned-in-vomit-at-priory-court-care-home-in-ewell/
That's my mother in the story.
We went to see Chris Grayling three times over the course of the year to complain about what Epsom & Ewell Social Services were doing to us - we'd given notice at Priory Court after their poor care but our move to another care home was nixed by them, while SS played a game with us. This appeared to be revenge because I'd taken another Surrey care home - Firtree House in Banstead - to the press, also after poor care, as the paper revealed how it had failed its CQC inspection on all counts and not told anyone, and how it had been hiring illegal immigrants.
Mum was in hospital for a month and a half after what Firtree did to her.
Curiously, Grayling never even hinted to us that might be the reason the Council's Social Services were playing funny buggers, even though I'd raised the news story in our first meeting.
I suspect he was using our meetings to carry out surveillance on us and feed back to his mates at the Surrey-led Council - I raised this in a letter to the paper much later and he never denied it.
The advice he gave us was misinformation. He can claim incompetence, quite credibly given his record, on this point.
We gave notice to Priory Court care home in March. Eventually we got out in mid July that year. During that time my mother's life was put at risk several times, not just in the story I've linked to, while along the way Social Services tried every trick to trip us up. They ignored all our concerns about the care home, doctored the minutes, tried to get us to sign a 'contract' admitting all sorts of things that were false, you name it. Started off pretending to be our new best friends, so we would have our guard down.
Grayling said he'd raise questions with them and took their word on everything, though it took over a month for him to get back to us, and would only respond mostly in one line emails.
We were at our wits' end and he was clueless in that way that seems designed to make you think it's not wilful negligence.
In the end, Grayling resorted to sarcasm to me in his email when like I say it was July and we'd been desperate to get Mum out since March.
Eventually we did get Mum out to a care home in Kingston, but we had to use all our wiles to outwit Epsom & Ewell Social Services. I let Grayling have it in an email. He seemed petulant that we had succeeded in getting Mum away from the area.
I now have a Twitter feed called @GraylingLegacy.
Social Services' Jean Hills and Sherene West have a special place in Sheila's care for what they allowed to happen to her. They have never even contacted us over what happened in that incident, never asked to see the footage and their dodgy conduct was the only reason I had the spy camera in the room in the first place.
Like Grayling, they are un-sackable - probably because of all the dirty secrets they know.
Grayling is an utter bastard and I think he has blood on his hands for what he has allowed to happen to the elderly in his constituency. His legacy can be seen in the care home genocide that's happened in the country this last year - that said, everyone is culpable, that is to say, all the State regulators, the local NHS CCG, the whole shebang.
Since my mother died, all I've heard about is how rubbish he is and how many care home deaths there have been.