Disabled woman victim of catastrophic failures, inquest told

A disabled woman who died after she was dropped by care home workers was the "victim of a catalogue of catastrophic failures", her sister told an inquest.

Lyn Parker, 64, died 10 days after fracturing her ribs and arms at a home in south-west London in January 2021.

Ms Parker, who was non-verbal, was on the floor for more than three hours before an ambulance arrived.

On Wednesday, her sister Kim Parker said what happened was "still quite hard for me to take in".

In a statement read out to West London Coroner's Court, she said: "I felt I had to come here to this inquest with representations to ensure that Lyn's story is heard and the correct questions are asked to enable changes as a result so we can prevent the suffering that Lyn went through happening to anybody else."

The inquest jury previously heard how Ms Parker fell 1.5m as care workers tried to lift her from her wheelchair to her bed using a sling at Tudor Avenue Residential Care Home in Hampton, south-west London.

Ms Parker then lay on the floor for more than three hours before an ambulance took her to Kingston Hospital alone.

She was later discharged with undiagnosed rib fractures and a fracture to her left arm before being readmitted the next morning after a carer found her left arm "swollen and black".

Despite being treated for the "missed" fractures, her condition deteriorated and she died 10 days later, with the main cause of death attributed to "aspiration pneumonia".

A consultant previously told the inquest that the delay in admitting her would not have changed the outcome.

Addressing the hearing on Wednesday, Ms Parker revealed that her sister had received "life-changing injuries" in 2013 when a carer gave her "scalding hot food" and burned her throat.

After this, she was "prone" to chest infections, her sister told the hearing.

Regular hospital admissions following the incident prompted "best interest meetings" between medical professionals, carers and family, the court heard.

Her family decided that she still had a "good quality of life and is a happy person" and so her "learning difficulties and disabilities should not influence the decision to resuscitate", Ms Parker said.

Despite this, a do not resuscitate order "always" came up as a "new decision" whenever Ms Parker was admitted to hospital, her sister said.

She told the inquest that she received a phone call from a doctor at Kingston Hospital on 18 January in which she was told her sister stood no chance of survival.

"He called me around midnight saying... that it was distressing for Lyn," she told the jurors.

"So I accepted what he said."

Her treatment was restarted the following day after the care home manager argued for it, the hearing was told.

The inquest continues.

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