A criminal investigation has been launched into a luxury care home in Surrey where Ann King, an 88-year-old resident, was abused by staff in a case that shocked the country.
The Care Quality Commission, which regulates social care in England, announced the investigation into Reigate Grange 11 months after the Guardian broadcast distressing secret camera footage of staff taunting, shouting at and roughly handling the former nurse who was living with dementia. King died in October 2022 after her children took her back home in March 2022 in disgust at her treatment.
The £2,400-a-week home is operated by Signature Senior Living, considered the most expensive care operator in the UK. The chain looks after more than 2,000 residents and is ultimately owned by a £150bn Canadian institutional pension fund investor.
CQC told the family the investigation centres on “possible failures by Reigate Grange to provide safe care and treatment to your mother between January 2021 and March 2022”. It will look at whether the Signature subsidiary that operates the home and/or the registered manager at the time failed to ensure there were suitably qualified, skilled and experienced employees – a breach of Health and Social Care Act regulations.
The footage was captured on a secret camera installed on King’s bedside table by her concerned son, Richard Last. It showed her being taunted, mocked, sworn at and roughly handled by different care workers, in some cases causing her to yell out in distress.
In one clip, when King was disoriented and asked “where am I?”, a male care worker crouched down close to her face and said: “You’re in a fucking home.”
She was assaulted by a cleaner, who hit her with a rag used to clean a toilet while she was lying in bed, threatened to empty a bin on her head and made sexual gestures in her face.
Surrey police issued the cleaner with a community resolution, a low-level out of court disposal. The Crown Prosecution Service decided there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges.
Last said: “We are pleased the CQC has come round to this but they have not been responsive enough from the word go. “They could have protected my mum and possibly others if they had acted sooner.”
The biggest fine ever levied on a care operator after a CQC investigation was £700,000. That came for a failure to deliver safe care and treatment, after an 86-year-old man choked to death at Mill View care home in West Sussex . Prosecutions over staff standards are rarer. CQC has told the family any crimes must be proven “beyond reasonable doubt”.
The Guardian understands the CQC has received extensive secret camera footage and care records. It also faced pressure from the shadow cabinet minister Liz Kendall who in June pressed the regulator’s chief executive, Ian Trenholm, over its investigation into King’s abuse.
Last said he first contacted the watchdog with concerns about his mother’s treatment in July 2021. Increasingly worried about how she was being looked after on the home’s dementia floor, he installed a hidden camera that autumn.
Kate Terroni, the chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, last October described the footage as “devastating” and “appalling”. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, called the abuse “a total disgrace” and the then care minister, Neil O’Brien, said he was “shocked and saddened by the abuse and mistreatment”.
A spokesperson for Signature Senior Living said: “We have always been clear that the behaviour of the individuals involved in Mrs King’s care 18 months ago was reprehensible and did not represent our values or standards of care. They are no longer employed, we have apologised to the King family, and we have worked closely with the CQC and police at every stage.”
The manager of the home, who is now under criminal investigation, moved to work at another Signature home after the footage emerged before leaving the company.
The care operator said it now offers families the choice of installing cameras in rooms occupied by dementia patients which are monitored remotely by a third party company for safety breaches. Families can also access the footage. It is also calling for a register of care workers so “rogue individuals can be banned”.
“We will continue to work with residents, families, and campaigners to root out bad actors from the care sector,” a spokesperson said.
A CQC spokesperson said: “We are carrying out a criminal investigation into concerns raised around the care provided to Ann King at Reigate Grange. No decision has been made on whether we will be taking any enforcement action. We will provide an update once this investigation has concluded.”
