An elderly woman living alone in a bungalow died of hypothermia after her call to report a fault with her boiler went unanswered.
Sylvia Pollitt was found dead at her housing association home in Seamons Walk, Altrincham, Greater Manchester, on December 1.
On November 18, Mrs Pollitt had called housing assocation L&Q Group Housing to report a concern about her boiler.
The call was passed on to Liberty, a firm subcontracted by L&Q to provide gas services, but Liberty was unable to contact Mrs Pollitt and closed the call down.
Mrs Pollitt was found dead at her bungalow 13 days later.
A post-mortem later revealed she died from complications of hypothermia.
Alison Mutch, area coroner for Manchester South, has now issued a rare ‘prevention of future deaths report’ to L&Q, calling on it to take steps to prevent a similar situations.
She said that when Liberty could not reach Mrs Pollitt, it “should have escalated the situation”.
Agreements dictate Liberty should have informed the housing assocation that Mrs Pollitt was unreachable “so that they can carry out welfare checks and assess the position further”, according to evidence heard at inquest.
“Carrying out of welfare checks for vulnerable adults ensures that they are safe and well,” wrote Ms Mutch in her report. “That did not happen in Mrs Pollitt’s case.”
L&Q reportedly had “no audit system” that would help show whether this was a one-off, or frequent issue.
At the inquest, which ended last month, Ms Mutch concluded Mrs Pollitt “died from hypothermia when her request for an engineer visit when she had concerns about her boiler did not happen and non-contact with her was not escalated”.
L&Q has referred itself to the Regulator of Social Housing following the incident.
David Lewis, Executive Group Director, Property Services at L&Q, said: “We were extremely saddened by the death of Sylvia Pollitt, and our thoughts remain with her family, friends and neighbours. A tragic death like this must never happen again, and important changes have been made to ensure this is the case.
“After Mrs Pollitt reported a concern about her boiler, the job was passed to gas maintenance contractor Liberty. At this time, Liberty were under contract to Trafford Housing Trust (THT), a subsidiary of L&Q, and subject to THT processes.
“As the coroner’s report sets out, Liberty were unable to make contact with Mrs Pollitt, but rather than follow the agreed processes in place, they made no further efforts to access the property or let THT know about the situation.”
THT has now merged to form part of L&Q.
L&Q says that according to recorded calls with Mrs Pollitt, the boiler fault was not affecting her heating at the time she rang on Nov
When a gas engineer visited the property after Mrs Pollitt died, he found there to be a “small leak” in her boiler.
Mr Lewis said L&Q has carried out a “thorough” review of all call-outs put through to Liberty, and did not find similar incidents had occurred.
He added that a “stringent new process” was immediately put in place, to track the progress of each new call-out.
“We are able to audit every open, completed and aborted job, with reports produced on a weekly basis and reviewed between L&Q and Liberty managers,” he said. “Any concerns are immediately escalated to our neighbourhood teams to undertake welfare checks. This is consistent with the recommendations made by the coroner in this case, which we are committed to learn from.
“More widely, following THT’s alignment with L&Q in April 2023, we are now replicating L&Q processes across all of our north west operations. Crucially, the L&Q process for repairs contractors does not permit them to cancel jobs without formal approval from L&Q. This will prevent such an incident happening again.
“We have made other important changes to the processes we have in place to keep residents safe. These include improving the way we manage and record the calls we get about repairs, more regular meetings with all contractors to monitor how the work they are doing for residents is progressing, and going to visit residents sooner to check they are okay when repairs have not been completed due to us being unable to make contact.
“L&Q has referred itself to the Regulator of Social Housing in relation to this case.”
A spokesperson for Liberty said: “Everybody at Liberty is deeply saddened by the death of Sylvia Pollitt.
“On November 18 last year a job was raised for a repair to a small leak on Mrs Pollitt’s boiler. We confirmed that the leak was not affecting the heating and hot water at Mrs Pollitt’s home and informed her we would make contact to schedule a repair.
“Unfortunately, in this case we were unable to contact Mrs Pollitt to arrange to visit her home.
“We are committed to working with L&Q to learn important lessons and implement changes to how services are delivered.
“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies remain with Mrs Pollitt’s family and friends.”
