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MP Calls for More CCTVs in Care Homes
An MP has called for more CCTV in care homes after carers failed to provide an explanation as to how her elderly father ended up covered in bruises.
23:38 05 March 2019
Rosena Allin-Khan has called for the use of CCTV to better protect vulnerable people in care homes. The call came after she was told by a Wandsworth council official that her father was covered in blood and bruises because “he had asked for it.” Dr Allin-Khan’s father is suffering from dementia and could no longer talk.
She said: “Vulnerable people in care facilities rightly need their privacy, but we could most definitely increase CCTV in black spot areas. One of the most difficult parts of an investigation is finding evidence, and without evidence abusers go undiscovered and unpunished.”
She said that they received an anonymous phone call urging her to check urgently on her father, a former university lecturer aged 76.
“Nothing prepares you for arriving to find your loved one with black eyes, bruises, cuts and blood on their face,” she said.
Dr Allin-Khan, who is an A&E doctor, said she was surprised that an ambulance had not been called to a senior citizen on blood thinners with a head injury. Staff said her father had not fallen nor been outside the Ensham House but had no explanation.
A spokesperson for London Care, which runs the home, said “no evidence could be found” of failings in its duty of care and stressed that safety was “our top priority”.