Council fined £80k after dementia patient's preventable death

The care home is situated in the village of Castlebay on Barra (Andrew Milligan/PA) Andrew Milligan

A council has been fined £80,000 following the "preventable" death of a dementia patient who went missing from a care home during the night. Allan MacLeod, 69, disappeared from his bedroom at St Brendan's Care Home in Castlebay on the Isle of Barra in the early hours of March 9 last year without staff realising.

He was found near the home about four hours after going missing, with facial injuries consistent with falling, and died a short time later in hospital. Western Isles Council was fined at Lochmaddy Sheriff Court on Wednesday August 6 after it admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said.

Previous escape attempts ignored

Mr MacLeod had been a resident at the home for about six months at the time of his death. The home is one of five operated by the council throughout the Western Isles.

An HSE investigation determined that he had made several previous attempts to leave the home. It found that any measures staff had taken to mitigate this, by fitting an electronic tag to his clothing that indicated his whereabouts, had been defeated by Mr MacLeod removing it.

Fatal security gap discovered

HSE said that on March 8, having been settled in bed at about 9pm, hourly checks were carried out to ensure he was alright. However, at 2am on March 9, staff found that he was not in his bed.

Investigations found that he had left the home via the only door that did not have an alarm which was located 10 metres from his bedroom. Following a search involving the coastguard, RNLI and firefighters, he was found near the home on the patio of a residential property.

Tragic and preventable death

HSE inspector Ashley Fallis said: "This was a tragic and preventable death. The council should have made sure the home had stronger measures in place with Mr MacLeod's risks already known and assessed. Although changes have since been made, they came too late to prevent his death."

HSE said that after Mr MacLeod's death, the home introduced a regime of half hourly checks on residents. Arrangements had already been made to install keypad entry systems on all doors, but this work had not been completed before he died.

Council accepts responsibility

A spokesperson for Western Isles Council said: "Comhairle nan Eilean Siar once again extends its sincere condolences to the family and friends of the late Mr Allan F MacLeod for the circumstances surrounding his tragic passing on 9 March 2024." The council accepted that health and safety shortcomings contributed to the tragic incident and pled guilty to the charges brought by the procurator fiscal.

"The door security system in use at St Brendan's Care Home was a key factor in this case," the spokesperson said. "A new door security system had been procured but at the time of the incident the works to install it had not been completed."

Standards not met

The authority said it is committed to delivering high standards of care to all residents in its residential homes but acknowledged these standards were not fully met in this instance. The council has implemented health and safety improvements and will continue to work with the Care Inspectorate to ensure that its residential homes operate to the highest possible standards.

(PA) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.