A care home investigated by the documentary programme Panorama has failed in its claim to Ofcom that the home had been treated unfairly.Panorama – Elderly Care: Condition Critical investigated concerns about poor standards of day-to-day care in two care homes.
The programme featured allegations that Kathleen Reid, a former resident of The Poplars, had received poor care at the home between 2008 and 2011.
It was alleged Mrs Reid, who died 14 days after leaving the Poplars, had not been receiving medication, had not been fed properly and that her room had “damp all over the walls”.
The Poplars’ responses to each of these allegations were included in the programme, shown on BBC One on 17 June last year.
Nonetheless, the care home claimed Panorama had omitted what it considered significant factors from its broadcast.
These included its belief that a former employee who corroborated the complaints of Mrs Reid’s family was engaged in a “vendetta” against The Poplars.
In its ruling, though, Ofcom said the inclusion of the ex-employee’s testimony was supported by evidence from other sources and “did not result in unfairness to the complainant”.
“The material facts,” it went on, “were not presented, omitted or disregarded in a way that portrayed The Poplars unfairly in the programme as broadcast”.
Following the broadcast in June 2013 the home underwent further investigations by the local authority Leicestershire County Council.
