Care home failed to dress a resident's wounds properly

What happened

Mrs B was resident at a private care home and funded by the NHS. She had to go to hospital, and on admission, a nurse noted that her leg ulcers had not been dressed properly. Mrs B's daughter, Mrs S, complained to the home about this, but was not happy with the response and so she complained to us. Mrs S said that the home's failing may have contributed to her mother contracting an infection, and that her health deteriorated further after being in hospital. Mrs S said that her efforts to find out the truth were very stressful.

What we found

Many aspects of the home's care of Mrs B's leg wounds were good. However, there was insufficient detail in the records to suggest it had formally assessed her wounds on a regular basis. On at least one occasion, the dressings were applied incorrectly and there was evidence for this in the hospital records. We realised that this was possibly an isolated incident, but it was not appropriately investigated by the care home manager, so there was no explanation of why or how it happened.

We did not find that the home's management of Mrs B's wounds caused her to go to hospital.

Putting it right

We saw no evidence of widespread failings in wound management at the home, and so we made no recommendations to improve its service. The care home manager agreed to apologise to Mrs B's daughter for the issues we had identified.