A COUPLE who blew the whistle over care failings involving a 93-year-old relative with advanced dementia have urged others to speak out.

Julia Baines was so concerned with the deterioration of her mother Lilian Buttery that she and her husband Mick took the decision to install surveillance equipment in her room at Lake View, in Withnell.

The company which ran the care home, Embrace, have now reached an out-of-court settlement with the couple despite not admitting liability.

However, the national firm headquartered in Birmingham did make the concession that the standard of care provided is likely to have been below that which ought to have been acceptable.

Mrs Baines, who runs a card stall on Darwen Market, is now sharing her two-year battle for answers over the great-grandmother’s treatment to urge other to take action.

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Mrs Baines and her fellow family members became concerned after Mrs Buttery lost weight, was suffering from urinary tract infections and had fallen on a number of occasions.

And when they felt their concerns were not being taken seriously by management at the home they introduced a motion-sensor camera in her room.

Their footage, captured over Christmas 2014 and New Year 2015, triggered a Care Quality Commission visit.

Bosses at Embrace shut the Chorley Road home within weeks of the visit. The CQC had already found the home to be ‘inadequate’ following an inspection the previous January.

An agency nurse, who was found to have dragged Mrs Buttery by the wrist while trying to move her, performing a drag lift on the pensioner on Boxing Day and failing to observe basic hygiene measures on three occasions, was suspended for three months after a Nursing and Midwifery Council hearing.

Mrs Baines, 57, from Abbey Village, said: “Installing a camera was the most difficult decision we ever had to make. But we had seen such a deterioration in her condition that we just had to act.

“It was never about the financial settlement for us, we just wanted to let other people know what was going on there and to help prevent anything like this happening again.

“Without our fight my mum would have had no voice and would have become another statistic.

“No human being deserves to be treated in this way. As a family we are still heartbroken with the treatment mum received. But we would do it all again, if we had to, and would encourage other people to do the same.”

Mrs Buttery, a former weaver from Brinscall, who had been at Lake View since 2010, was eventually moved to the Old Gates care home in Livesey Branch Road, Blackburn by the family. She died in June 2015.

Mrs Baines’s decision was made even harder as she had worked at the home previously. But her sister Pat Forsyth and other relatives agreed that securing video evidence was their only course of action.

Mrs Baines said she tried to explain to the care home about her concerns but all they did was remove the camera.

Speaking after the settlement, the family’s lawyer Veronica Male, of Tollers Solicitors, said: “Without the video footage Mrs Buttery would have been left in that care home receiving appalling care and the poor care in that home would continue for other residents too.”

Her colleague Paul Morrison said: “The case was settled without an admission of liability. However there is a concession, on behalf of their insurers Sun Alliance however, that the standard of care provided is likely to have been below that which ought to have been acceptable.”

A spokesman for Embrace said: “Following the allegations in 2014, we fully engaged in the external investigation and worked closely with all of the appropriate authorities to address any issues identified.

“However, we have never been shown the video footage in question, despite our requests, and nor have any specific allegations ever been confirmed with us.

“The decision to close Lake View was incredibly difficult, but was taken because of the challenges we had finding suitably qualified full-time staff in the local area.

“The increased dependency on agency staff presented a risk to making sure residents would always receive the very highest standards of care that they deserved, and that we pride ourselves on delivering across our other services.

“Following the closure, a comprehensive internal review was completed so that we could learn from this experience. All recommendations from this report were implemented.

“Our number one priority is always the health, safety and wellbeing of the residents we support.

“We have extensive safeguards in place across all our homes, including a comprehensive quality assurance system, regular internal reviews and monitoring, and comprehensive training for all our staff.

“Any complaints are always thoroughly investigated and we strive to always provide the very highest standards of care.”