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It‘s taken seven years for Marilyn Payne to win justice for her father against the care home nurses who neglected him, but helped by a Clinical Negligence Solicitor at law firm Pannone, she‘s got it.

Abuse claims

Dennis Payne had been living alone in Derbyshire, when he began to show early signs of senile dementia. By 1998, he was incapable of looking after himself. Southover was one of the few homes close to Marilyn in Maidenhead, which met the nursing needs of her father and took social services-funded patients.

In the two months he‘d spent at Southover since December 1999, Marilyn frequently found her father in a distressing state: he was heavily sedated; getting thin and bony and was often being shouted at to sit down. All too often he was sopping wet.

Dennis was admitted to Wrexham Park hospital in Slough as an emergency in a condition the doctors said was commonly associated with wartime trenches. He had a huge sore at the base of his spine which had rotted his skin to the bone.

Shortly afterwards, Marilyn complained about her father‘s treatment at Southover to the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (now the Nursing and Midwifery Council). She also wrote to The Sunday Times. After the story was published in November 2000, Marilyn received dozens of letters from families of other victims and from whistleblowing nurses.

Last month, Barbara Slader and a night nurse at Southover, Jane Richardson, were found guilty of serious neglect and misconduct and struck off the nursing register.

Dennis Payne died, in 2002, surrounded by his family, having spent his last 18 months in Marilyn‘s home. His death did not deter her campaign.

By 2004, Pannone advised Marilyn to accept an out-of-court settlement of £45,000. “The settlement was vindication of Marilyn Payne‘s relentless hard work,” says Pannone‘s Kris Inskip. “There are a lot of elderly people like Dennis Payne who are mistreated in old people‘s homes, but they don‘t have the support of people like Marilyn.

“She‘d hit brick walls in her pursuit of her complaints and legal action was her only option. People are frightened of the law but since the original Sunday Times story, Pannone has received a significant number of inquiries from people concerned about nursing home care and we‘ve successfully dealt with these cases.”

Marilyn‘s solicitor, Kris Inskip, is a Clinical Negligence Solicitor that specialises in nursing home and care home abuse claims. Kris can be reached by phone on 0800 840 4929 or by e-mail.

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