Wales's Biggest Nursing Homes Scandal Week In Week Out

investigation into neglect of the elderly in nursing homes. The pain

and suffering she must have gone through to be in that state. I don't

know any other way to describe it other than a catalogue of failures.

We speak to a former worker. There was a deliberate undercutting of

staff to save money. Families whose hopes for justice lie in tatters.

Somebody has to answer to all these failures. We examine the system that

let them down. How do we prove those cases? That is incredibly difficult.

What of the nursing homeowner who will probably never stand trial?

can make complaint, but you have to years, all with failing health. They

all required care in a nursing home. But what their families didn't know

was that their loved ones were suffering behind closed doors. They

were all victims of neglect. These empty offices were the base for a

team from Gwent Police who investigated that neglect for

seven-and-a-half years. Operation Jasmine identified 74 suspects and

103 potential victims. The investigation into six nursing homes

cost �11 million. It generated a huge amount of paperwork, but in

court, earlier this year, the trial collapsed in dramatic fashion

leaving families, like Evelyn Jones, with a host of unanswered questions.

Nobody deserves an ending like this. We wanted this opportunity to be

able to tell her story, what happened to her, so it is not swept

under the carpet. This was Ruth's grandmother five years before she

died. What happened to Evelyn became one of the key cases in the Gwent

Police investigation. She was a very kind, very caring. She was quiet,

she had a quiet way about her. She had a good social life. She was very

popular and well thought about in her community. Evelyn developed

dementia. Her family realised she needed full-time care and

eventually, she was placed in a nursing home. It is now under new

ownership. It used to be called Brithdir. When she went in, I went

up to see her. She was sitting in a chair, had a tray, some lady was

trying to take her food off her. She was fit enough to say, "That's mine!

You will have yours in a minute." She was quite talkative and she

would come to the door with us when we were going. Marina and her family

went to Greece for two weeks for Ruth's wedding. When they returned,

they noticed a big difference in Evelyn. They were shocked when they

tried to lift her in her chair. son got one side of her. We tried to

do the same as what the nurses, the way they handled, not to hurt her.

We put our arms underneath her arms. Then we tried to lift her up. When

he was lifting her up, she was going, "Oh!" She kept on like that

all the time. I said, "You have to get up." I said, "What's the

matter?" She looked at me and the tears were rolling down her face.

Evelyn developed a chest infection and was admitted to Prince Charles

Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil. When I arrived, I found my grandmother in

an isolation room. We all went in as a family. But there was a really bad

smell, a very pungent family. I recognised the smell of an ulcer.

The smell was so bad that the children, well they couldn't stand

it, basically. My husband said, "I'm going to take them out." Staff

alerted Ruth to the wounds on her grandmother's back. There was a

large bruise which was at least 12-and-a-half inches by 6 inches. It

was massive. It looked like a really bad burn, it looked like a burn. It

was black, blue and festering around the edges. It was sore.When I

looked further down, it was horrific. What I saw next I wasn't

expecting to see. She had two holes holes in the coccyx area, which was

like a twopence piece. One slightly above it, a bit smaller, but it was

so badly infected that I could see the bones of her back penetrating

through these holes. Obviously, the smell was all this infection. It was

black. It was absolutely horrific. The pain and suffering she must have

gone through to be in that state doesn't bear thinking about.

hospital staff were so appalled by what they had found that they called

in social services and the police. By 2006, it became evident that

there was a pattern across a number of homes in which we were seeing

deaths in circumstances which appeared to be not natural causes.

Tin vest gating team were shocked by what they were finding. -- the

investigating team were shocked by what they were finding. When you are

seeing people with pressure sores that are corroded down to the bone,

where you have got people who are vomiting faeces because they are so

constipated or where you have people who are so dehydrated that it's a

significant cause of their death, then in 2006, now in 2013, surely

nobody would expect anybody to live in those conditions. I went like

that. This is how I liked to think of dad. Casual dress. Pam and

Gaynor's father, Stanley Bradford, had also been in the Brithdir

nursing home. On a number of occasions, I was there for four

hours at a time, in all that time I never seen one career. We would go

in, let ourselves out, that four hours I was there, we wouldn't see a

career or nobody. On two occasions, one was for the evening meal and the

other time was for the lunch time meal. I waited in his room. Nobody

came with food. That was the same on both occasions. They had forgotten,

that was their explanation. How many other times have they forgotten to

feed my dad? When Stanley became unwell, and had to go to hospital,

Gaynor was shocked by what she saw. When they took the gown off him to

examine him, the state on him to me was like somebody out of a prisoner

of war camp. His chest was sunk in. I ran out. It was a real shock to me

the way I seen it. Stanley Bradford died later that year. He was 76. A

few months later, the police called on his family. The first thought

that come to my mind was that they had evidence that he had been

starved to death because the way I seen him, that is what I thought

they were coming to tell me, you know. It wasn't for that. Dad was

one of the ones that was going to be looked at by medical experts that

they were fetching in to deal with the case. We know he had severe

pressure ulcers. Nobody had told us in the home that dad was suffering

from pressure ulcers. Only the investigation through the police.

People do get pressure sores. It is a fact. But not to this extent. I

think would I want to put my family into a care home in those

circumstances? Absolutely not. the time the police were

investigating Brithdir, it was owned by this man, Dr Prana Das. He is a

GP and ran a surgery with his wife in Bargoed. Dr Das has owned and run

care homes across South Wales for more than 20 years. At its height,

his empire consisted of 25 registered homes, which made it the

largest business of its kind in Wales. Concerns about the care

provided at Dr Das's nursing homes stretch back years. In 2005, we made

a programme highlighting complaints from worried families. Complaint

after complaint after complaint. Lack of consultation with the GP,

upheld. Poor personal hygiene, inadequate wound care, upheld.

Failure to call in a GP, upheld. Poor communication record keeping,

upheld. Upheld. Privacy and dignity, not respected. You are a GP. Don't

you care about this? You can make complaint, but you have to prove it.

All those allegations were upheld by the Care Standards Inspectorate. And

Dr Das's nursing home, Baybridge, was closed down. After we broadcast

our programme in 2005, we were contacted by even more worried

families. Like former staff nurse Jeanette and her brother Gareth.

Their mother was also in Brithdir. At first, they had no complaints.

seemed clean. Yeah, it was clean. The staff... The food was OK.

one morning, they had a call to say their mother, Marion Barnes, had

fallen. They rushed to the home. When we got up there, she was in the

ambulance. There was a young career with my mum. I said to her what has

happened and she said, "I came in to work this morning and found your

mother on the floor." She was shaking. She said she couldn't move.

The career called for help from a nurse. She said, just get Mrs Barnes

dressed and bring her downstairs." The young girl said, "I'm not moving

Mrs Barnes, she seems to be in a bad way. She needs to be seen." When I

got there, it was clear to see a her femur had been broken. You could see

where the bone was protruding. I don't need to be a doctor, or have

medical knowledge to see the bone was broken. It was plain to see. How

these people didn't see that, getting her dressed, beggars belief.

They told me she had got up and walked, which was impossible. She

couldn't stand up on her own, let alone walk. Her bed had a cot side

to it, didn't it? It should have had a cot side. They hadn't attached the

cot side that night. They said they had. They tried to make out that my

mother crawled to the bottom of the bed. Marion's broken leg was treated

in hospital but when she was well enough to be discharged, she didn't

return to the Brithdir nursing home. We wouldn't let her go back there.

You lost confidence in them? Definitely. All we wanted at the

time was for them to close the place down. We were appalled by what had

happened. Yeah. These events took place in 2004 and 2005. But we can

reveal that concerns about the standard of care at Dr Das's nursing

homes went back at least ten years earlier. Those underlined indicate

the times that we were on our own. Not only is it not acceptable, it is

dangerous for the staff and the patients. Dawn Goll worked nights as

the sister in charge at one of Dr Das's nursing homes. It is now under

new ownership. The moment he took over, everything changed. He

wouldn't have agency nurses. He cut down on the quality and quantity of

food. And also incontinent aids. If you are going to have a nursing

home, and run a nursing home, these people are not units of money. You

have to look after them. You have to give your staff the facilities to do

it. If you are cutting back on staffing levels, and food, and

incontinence aids, where is that money going? These people are paying

for it. They are entitled to good care. Dawn was particularly worried

about staffing levels. I worked five nights a week and very often I would

work three on my own. I wasn't the only one. There were other nurses

being made to work on their own. What would be the situation if you

had one resident on that part of the hall, one resident and both

simultaneously having a heart attack? Which one do you go to? It

is not good Dr Das saying it happened if somebody didn't turn up,

or it was a case of sickness. No, that was not the case. There was a

deliberate undercutting of staff to save money. Dawn Goll wasn't

prepared to tolerate the staffing levels at Hengoed Hall and she

resigned. She had kept paperwork showing how often she was the only

nurse on duty. And an employment tribunal accepted her claim that she

had been constructively dismissed. Dr Das was now coming to the

attention of the authorities in Wales and a new organisation had him

in their sights. The care standard inspectorate for Wales now had

responsibility for regulating nursing homes. Dr Das wasn't about

to give up his empire without a fight. People can complain, this is

what I am saying. We have no control over people complaining, but they

have to prove it and if they prove it, how valid that proof is, how

qualified that is. We can challenge them and we have to find out how

genuine those complaints are. Following up major concerns, the

authorities closed nine of Dr Das's homes. He was still permitted to

continue running others, like the one at Brithdir. The families want

to know why this was allowed to happen. How was he able to run these

homes? I found out since that this goes back to 2001. Surely that is

wrong? It is wrong. The Older People's Commissioner for Wales is

concerned about how the system allowed such widespread neglect to

go unchecked. 103 people over a considerable period of time, I don't

know how to describe it other than systemic failure. We failed to

protect those people when they needed our protection most. I do

firmly think there should be a fitness to own test. I firmly

believe that. I don't think older people would see that as being

unreasonable either. There is a fitness test, but the Commissioner

says it doesn't go far enough. you have a history of running or

owning a home where older people have been the victims of abuse or

neglect, I don't think you should be allowed to own a care home in the

future. Holly House near Blackwood was the nursing home owned by Dr Das

that we featured in 2005. It was eventually closed down due to a

faulty gas supply. But the families we have spoken to said they didn't

realise at the time that their loved ones were being moved from one Dr

Das home to another at Brithdir. should have been told about this,

that Dr Das owned that home, I mean the one previously, Holly House, I

mean that was just shutting down. I mean, the authorities didn't tell

us. We didn't know. If only we had known that Dr Das had run that home,

Our Father wouldn't have been in there. Would we? Vulnerable, elderly

people, we understand, were still being sent to homes which were under

investigation. Can that be right? No. It is not. Is it? I'm very

clear. Older people are very clear. The average man or lady in the

street would be very clear. If it goes wrong, put it right. If you

can't put it right, help me to live somewhere where I am safe. Don't

can't put it right, help me to live somewhere where I am safe. Don't to

somewhere where I'm not safe. council declined to tell us if

families were ever warned that Brithdir was under investigation.

What Gwent Police began in 2005 became the biggest investigation

they had ever carried out. They called it Operation Jasmine. And

these shelves contained just part of a mountain of evidence, 12 tonnes in

all, which followed their investigation into six care homes,

two of which were owned by Dr Das. But despite all this work, their

enquiry was to receive a major setback. The Crown Prosecution

Service decided the evidence didn't reach the required threshold to

bring charges of gross negligence, manslaughter and wilful neglect. The

police were bitterly disappointed. After gathering all this evidence,

the Chief Constable at the time asked for a meeting with the

Director of Public Prosecutions to press their case. But the answer was

still no. If we haven't met the threshold test, there is a question

- what have I got to do next time to meet that threshold test when I have

put 75 detectives on an inquiry for the last six years? To prosecute Dr

Das, they tried a different route. And the Health and Safety Executive

took over the lead. They charged Dr Das, Chief Executive fall black and

their company Puretruce with offences under health and safety

laws, relating to Brithdir and a second nursing home called The

Beeches. Dr Das was accused of theft and false accounting. But then came

another and decisive setback. Last September, Dr Das and his wife

Nishebita were asleep at their home here when they were attacked by

burglars. Dr Das was repeatedly beaten about the head with a hammer

suffering what were later described as severe and traumatic brain

injuries. In March, Cardiff Crown Court was told that Dr Das was

highly unlikely to ever recover enough to stand trial. The CPS

decided not to proceed with the charges against Chief Executive Paul

Black or their company Puretruce. The families were devastated.

cheated, didn't we, that we were not going to see justice be done? After

all this time of waiting... You are not talking about one person caring

for somebody, you are talking about teams of people here, teams of

people, not one of them stood up and said, "I have a concern about Mrs

Jones." Maybe they did. But what happened? We will never know. There

is no closure for the family. Somebody has to answer for these

failures that have happened. In my eyes, up till now, there's been no

answers for us, nothing. The MP for Blaenau Gwent, Nick Smith, has taken

up the family's cause and he challenged the Prime Minister in

Parliament. The wilful neglect of residents in care homes is a crime.

But too often the victims and the victims' families don't get any

justice. Given it is your third anniversary, when will we have a law

that is fit for purpose? If you are a company director and you run a

care home, you make sure you have the best possible care for the

people that you are looking after. If you don't, you will be held

accountable under the law. In the end, Dr Das was going to be pursued

through health and safety and financial maladministration. That

can't be right. We should be pursuing these people for poor care

and if they do provide poor care, they should face the full force of

the law and they should be prosecuted and made to go to prison

for any criminal activity. Mr Smith wants to introduce a Private

Members' Bill later in the year. Its aim - to lower the threshold in

cases of wilful neglect and place greater corporate responsibility on

nursing homeowners. How do we prove admissions? If I had a child who was

three, and I left them in a room and I didn't feed them or care for them,

or if I had an elderly person and I left them lying in bed watching the

television, what is different? The Director of Public Prosecutions,

Keir Starmer, declined to give us an interview. He has agreed to meet

with families. The CPS acknowledges it could have x plained more clearly

to them and the police what the legal requirements are for a

successful prosecution -- explained. As well as cause for a change in the

law, there is growing pressure for a public inquiry. As Gwent Police

carried out their investigation, they identified what they said were

weaknesses within the system and they produced this document with 10

#6 recommendations for change. What we don't know is how many of these

have since been implemented. -- 106 recommendations. What concerns me

most is that we still don't know what happened to those individuals

who was responsible and we don't know whether we have yet learnt the

lessons to make sure it can't happen again across Wales. That is why I

have been very clear, I have called on the Welsh Government to undertake

a public inquiry into what happened, who was responsible and to provide

the reassurance that I think the public is looking for that it

couldn't happen again in Wales. Despite the fact that all this

evidence and much more has been gathered, it may never see the light

of day. And many of the agencies at the heart of this case have refused

to take part in our programme. That includes the regulator, the Care and

Social Services Inspectorate for Wales and Caerphilly Council which

paid for some elderly residents' care. The Welsh Government also

declined our invitation to take part, but a spokesman did say it is

considering calls for a public inquiry and legislation is planned

that is aimed at further protecting vulnerable adults. I do have to ask

the question so in future, if we have an elderly person, who is

brought into a care home, who is not turned or fed adequately, how do we

prove those cases? That is incredibly difficult.

Dr Das's empire of nursing homes lies in ruins. Some were ordered to

close down, like this one, or sold to other companies. All that remains

is one nursing home in the Rhymney Valley. We invited his wife,

Nishebita Das, to take part in our programme, or a representative of Dr

Das's. They failed to respond to our request for an interview. As has

company Chief Executive Paul Black. With a court case very unlikely, the

families are left wondering if they will ever get justice. For Gaynor

and Pam, the home where they have been told their father suffered

neglect brings back memories they have tried to forget. It holds so

many bad memories. To see your dad lying there and to think we didn't

have proof. We thought he was in good hands. Look at my dad's photo

every night and I say, squt sorry if we have let you down." Every night

you say that? Every night. Something has to be done. I want something

done. We hear that all the time. mother went down to hell and thank

goodness she is at peace now. I wouldn't want to see anybody going

through what she went through. She was vulnerable, she was trusting,