Fresh call for inquiry into care home scandal

New calls for a public inquiry into the Orchid View care home scandal have been made by relatives of people who died.
Orchid View care home ENGSUS00120121209093302Orchid View care home ENGSUS00120121209093302
Orchid View care home ENGSUS00120121209093302

The calls were made on Friday at a meeting with MPs arranged by West Sussex County Council to promote a new ‘Enough Is Enough - It’s Time To Care’ initiative.

Orchid View, in Copthorne, near Crawley, was run by Southern Cross and closed in 2011 following the deaths of 19 people some of whom were found to have suffered neglect.

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Judith Charatan, whose mother Doris Fielding was among those who died at Orchid View, siad: “We don’t think the problems have gone away.

“We felt the council attempted to act on recommendations from the serious case review, but we are still getting incidents at a national and a local level of neglect and abuse.”

She added that it seemed, seven years on from Orchid View, there was only information sharing ‘within’ authorities and not ‘across’ authorities.

West Sussex Council Council leader Louise Goldsmith said: “The meeting with local MPs and relatives from Orchid View about issues around care was very productive.

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“Our whole aim is to get care raised at a national level and to see changes made to the sector so we stop seeing repeated headlines about failings in care.

“We will continue to push for changes and for the issue to be raised nationally. Enough is enough - it’s time to care.”

Among MPs who attended the meeting were Horsham MP Jeremy Quin; Arundel and South Downs MP Nick Herbert; Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing; Gillian Keegan, MP for Chichester, and Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham. Also there were members of the Orchid View Relatives Action Group.