A care provider in Cornwall has been ordered to pay more than £160,000 after exposing a resident to “significant risk of avoidable harm” when she choked on food and later died.
Before Plymouth Magistrates’ Court this morning (Wednesday, August 13) was HF Trust Limited.
The provider pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to provide safe care and treatment to the resident, which exposed them to a significant risk of avoidable harm.
The resident, Miss Tina Allen, died after choking on her lunch at the provider’s St Teath Site, operated across two buildings called Valley View (also known as Valley View Farm) and Rendle House, in Bodmin. It no longer has Valley View.
The site provided accommodation and care for autistic people and people with a learning disability.
The court heard that on June 13, 2022 staff at Valley View served Miss Allen lunch and she began choking.
Staff made efforts to assist her but were unsuccessful. They called an ambulance, and she was taken to hospital, where she was treated for aspiration of food but sadly passed away two days later, on June 15, 2022.
Miss Allen had complex needs and required 24 hour, one-on-one support.
In 2015 she had a choking incident, and guidance was issued by an external speech and language therapy team, which was added to her care file.
The team gave further guidance following other choking incidents in 2020 – however this was not added to her care file to guide staff.
Magistrates fined HF Trust Limited £133,333 for the offence under Regulation 22 (2)(b) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
It was also ordered to pay a £190 victim surcharge and £27,134.66 in costs.
Catherine Campbell, CQC’s deputy director operations in Cornwall, said: “When people receive care and treatment, they have the right to expect care providers will effectively address risks to their health and safety. Sadly this wasn’t the case for Miss Tina Allen at Valley View.
“HF Trust Limited’s failure to manage the risks to this resident was unacceptable.
“The majority of care providers do an excellent job. However, when a provider puts people in its care at risk of harm, we will take action to hold them to account and to protect people.
“This fine is not representative of the value of Miss Allen’s life, but it should serve as a reminder to care providers of their duty to assess and manage people’s risks to ensure they are safe.”
A spokesperson for Hft said: “First and foremost, our thoughts are with Tina's family and friends. She was a much loved member of our community, and is greatly missed by all who knew her.
"Our entire charity has taken this matter extremely seriously, and acted with full transparency to support the investigation, and we fully accept the outcome of today's proceedings.
“It was important to Hft that lessons were learned from Tina's death, and we have made a number of positive changes at St Teath and across our entire organisation in the past three years.
"Under entirely new leadership, we have embedded new quality oversight and assurance systems to better monitor and support our local services.
"We have also transformed permanent staffing levels, and invested in local management. Our teams benefit from a new, enhanced training model, and we are able to share information more easily and quickly thanks to digital care plans.
“While we very sadly cannot change what happened, we hope that today has brought a sense of closure to Tina's family and friends. Our focus now is on supporting our team to continue providing high-quality, person-centred care for those we support."
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