Healthcare firm fined £46,000 for safety breach following fatal fire

Staff unable to identify site of fire at sheltered accommodation

A healthcare provider has been fined £46,000 for a health and safety breach after a fatal fire in its sheltered accommodation.

Elder Healthcare admitted the offence following the death of 96-year-old Olive Muriel Renecle in 2019.

Staff at Elder Grange, in Governor's Hill, were alerted to a smoke detector being triggered in one of the Fuchsia Lane apartments next to the home on Sunday, 17 November 2019.

Elder Healthcare, which runs the care home, also provides emergency assistance to residents in the adjacent apartments.

A display on the smoke alarm system showed the source to be apartment 32, owned by Mrs Renecle, but a list used by nursing staff only showed 1 to 22 meaning the nursing director on duty was unable to identify the source of the alarm.

Staff then silenced the alarm and did not call the fire service.

A short time later one of Mrs Renecle's neighbours raised the alarm but she was declared dead when she arrived at Noble's Hospital.

The court was told the fire was caused by an electric heater being left on overnight - which Elder Healthcare was not responsible for - and that it wasn't clear whether the delay in calling the fire service would have contributed to Mrs Renecle's death.

An investigation into the incident revealed staff didn't go to check if there was an apartment 32, weren't given formal training on what to do if an alarm went off in the sheltered accommodation, and there were no procedures on what to do if staff were unable to locate an alarm.

The hearing was also told there was a second list of residents, which would have identified Mrs Renecle as the resident in apartment 32, but it had been turned to face the wall because of GDPR legislation.

Considering the evidence Deemster Cook said it was quite clear the failing exposed other residents to harm with five flats on Fuchsia Lane not on the alarm list.

Deemster Cook added that this sort of behaviour must never happen again describing the incident as an 'unfortunate and awful occurrence'.

Elder Healthcare was given credit for an early guilty plea and co-operating with the investigation.

The firm was also told to pay prosecution costs of £4,000.