A BROTHER and sister painted a picture of ‘horror’ as they recalled being told to "lock the door" as patients "roamed around the corridors naked" on the night their mother died on Tawel Fan.

Christine Henderson and Philip Dickaty shared their experience of the Bodelwyddan based ward on the day the HASCAS report was published.

Their mother Joyce Dickaty was admitted to Tawel Fan for an assessment of her vascular dementia and medication.

She died six weeks later on November 18, 2012.

Mrs Henderson said: “My mother just went in there to get her tablets re-assessed, wouldn’t be for very long, and we were going to find her an EMI care home. She was just in another care home and she just got a bit feisty so they said she needs to move now.

“When we first got there, the first thing we didn’t like was… well we asked 'where are her teeth?' And they said,‘we have taken her teeth away because teeth are weapons,’ insinuating that she might have used them to bite somebody but didn’t actually say that.

“We saw a few different things happening and you were very alone when you went there. It was far away from the life plan that they told us, from the Liverpool Care Pathway, where we would all be together, talking and seeing her whenever we wanted.”

Mr Dickaty said he witnessed his mother deteriorate.

“She went in for assessment and was able to walk, communicate to an extent, drink and eat but in the space of one to two weeks, she was basically a vegetable,”he said.

“We’ve waited six years for this [HASCAS report]. Our mother died was one of the mortality patients. We expected some definite answers and instead, it felt like we were being preached to.

“In my opinion it was just a way for them to tick a box to say they had presented their findings and done their job. We are still left with a lot of questions unanswered.”

On the night of their mother’s death, Mrs Henderson and Mr Dickaty found their mum in a bed in a room stacked with beds and mattresses.

The brother and sister, who have another sister, said they were told to lock the door of the room as “patients were agitated” and a two were “roaming the corridors naked”.

When believing their mother had died, the relatives were subjected to further distress when told there were no doctors available.

An A&E doctor pronounced her dead a couple of hours later.

In relation to end of life care, the HACAS report noted: “Most of the families who had a loved one die on Tawel Fan ward were full of praise for the care and treatment provided.

“There was one exception to this where a family described a deeply distressing experience on the night their relative died which was due to what they described as a lack of professional care giving on the part of the ward staff combined with lack of out of hours medical cover.”

The HASCAS report, published last Thursday, found that there was "no evidence to suggest that Tawel Fan was an environment where absuive practice took place either as a result of uncaring staff who acted wilfully in an inappropriate manner or due to a system that failed to protect."

It was concluded that "on occassions care and treatment across the pathway was compromised the standards of care on Tawel Fan were of good overall general standard. 

"Failings in care cannot automatically be equated to abuse."