Hackney Council warned about elderly woman’s death just months before cutting falls prevention service

The Staying Steady programme will lose its council funding next year

A coroner raised concerns over the death of a local woman who collapsed in her own home just months before Hackney Council cut a service that helps elderly people avoid falls.

Anoush Summers, 77, died in hospital days after falling at home on 11 January.

She was found the next morning wearing a broken wrist alarm and taken to Homerton University Hospital, where she died of hypothermia two days later.

A prevention of future deaths report published in June by assistant coroner Edwin Buckett said she would have been found sooner had her wrist alarm been working, and that this “probably contributed to her death”.

Ms Summers, “a frail lady who was prone to falls”, lived on her own but had help from two care workers from Supreme Care Services Ltd.

She received visits twice a day.

Buckett’s report stated that Ms Summers had reported her wrist alarm as broken on 6 January, but her carers did not take steps to repair or replace it, or report the matter to the local authority.

“No clear instruction was given to care workers about the extent to which they would be expected to read the care notes relating to service users.

“None of the carers had been given any training, instruction, or guidance on the testing of wrist alarms to ensure they worked properly when attending upon service users.

“I am concerned that there is a risk of future deaths arising in circumstances when vulnerable people, who live at home and are reliant of wrist alarms which have been reported as not working, but have not yet been repaired, may unable to summon help,” the report added.

The Town Hall said it was “heartbroken” to learn of Ms Summers’ death and the circumstances, but the “standard agreement with all our care providers is that they test equipment and report faults to the council”.

Supreme Care Services said it was the responsibility of the wrist alarm provider, Livity Life, to maintain, repair and test the device.

The care company’s response to the coroner’s report stated there were “no contractual arrangements or requirements” which made it the care provider’s duty to “supply, maintain, repair or replace” the alarm.

Buckett added that Hackney Council and the carer company had not identified a “clear system” for reporting faulty wrist alarms.

“There is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken,” he concluded.

Several campaigners recently lambasted the Town Hall over cuts to a service designed to help elderly people avoid falls.

Cllr Chris Kennedy, Hackney’s health and adult social care chief, said  “unprecedented” budget pressures on local government and the health service meant the council has little choice but to withdraw funding from its falls management exercise programme next March.

The six-month group-based exercise scheme, Staying Steady, is designed for over-55s and delivered by MRS Independent Living for those at risk of falling or who have recently had a fall.

Natalie Pink, the MRS director, said the move would mark a “huge loss for older residents” and called for an “urgent review” into the decision.

Malcolm Alexander, chair of the Healthwatch and Public Involvement Association (HAIPA), warned that the “excellent” programme had “prevented many people from ending up in casualty, followed by long term admission to acute and elderly care wards”.

Writing to Mayor Caroline Woodley, he argued that closing the service would “likely lead to more older people falling and suffering hip and other bone fractures [and] substantially reduce their mobility and social interactions”.

Cllr Kennedy added that the council was working with the NHS to “review and redesign” their shared approach to falls prevention, including engaging service users and residents.

“This approach aims to delay and reduce the risk of a first fall among the wider population of older people across the City and Hackney.

“It also supports many older people to maintain activity following participation in a clinical falls prevention programme.”

Last week, the council received its second coroner’s warning in six months  following an inquiry into the death of a Hackney woman who fell from a council block building in the borough.