Elderly care home residents returning from hospital stays have come back with bedsores and in deteriorating health, according to staff.
The issue was raised by Middlesbrough care home staff at a meeting looking at the safeguarding of vulnerable adults in residential care.
Emma King, staff nurse at St Mary’s Nursing Home in Linthorpe, who has worked in the care industry for 10 years, said: “I don’t feel they (hospital) give us enough information. We have to chase them up.
"And they go in without a mark on their body and come out with pressure sores.”
Diane Maughan, manager at Dalby Court Care Home, Coulby Newham, said sometimes she doesn’t receive a full discharge sheet, which means the home staff do not know if the resident’s needs have changed.
Rachel Mawer, contracts and commissioning implementation manager at Middlesbrough Council, told the social care and adult services scrutiny panel that the issue was on the agenda of the care homes’ forum.
Cllr Mick Thompson, chair of the council’s social care and adult services scrutiny panel, said he would raise the issue with the authority’s health scrutiny panel.
But a spokesman for South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “We have no record of these homes raising such issues through our complaints procedure.
“If they wish to do so, we would be happy to hear these concerns.
“A patient cannot be formally discharged until they are declared as clinically stable by their consultant.”
The meeting also looked at the numbers of safeguarding alerts made to the council, the reviews the council makes at the 29 care homes in the borough, and what powers the authority has if “serious” concerns are raised.
As reported, five vulnerable adults a day were “alerted” to the authorities as being at risk of abuse or neglect in Middlesbrough care homes.
In 2013/14 there were 1,100 alerts from care homes, of which 312 were referred into full safeguarding procedures.
Referrals can vary from serious medication errors, concerns that carers have abused or neglected a resident, or concerns that family members are financially abusing a resident.
Ms Mawer said the majority were “A on B” situations – where one resident has hurt another – and Miss King added that this was extremely common especially among people with dementia.
“We see alerts as a good thing, we would be more concerned by a home which didn’t make any,” said Ms Mawer.
This was supported by the care home managers who agreed they had a good working relationship with the authority and could “even ring if we weren’t sure if something merited an alert or not”.
Mike Sharman, safeguarding adults co-ordinator at Middlesbrough Council, said: “50% were substantiated or partially substantiated.”
Vanessa Fryer, strategy and delivery manager for mental health and safeguarding at Middlesbrough Council, said the worst case she had ever seen was due to “fault on both sides” of the hospital that had discharged a man and the care home he went home to.
“He had some behaviour problems and staff felt unable to help him bathe or eat,” she said.
She admitted that “at that particular point in time” she would have “liked to close that home down”. She said in “extreme situations” the council “should have the authority” to close particular care homes.
A member of the Care Quality Commission was invited to the meeting but no one from the organisation attended.
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