Woman being dropped in care partly led to death - jury

A disabled woman who was dropped by two care workers at a south London care home died days later partly as a result of the fall, an inquest jury has found.

Lyn Parker, 64, fell at least 1.5m (5ft) being lifted her from her wheelchair into bed at Tudor Avenue Residential Care Home, in Hampton.

Giving a narrative verdict, the jury said her fall, combined with her pre-existing conditions, led to her death.

Her sister said her sense of "betrayal and anger" was "as powerful as ever".

The jury at West London Coroner's Court found the medical cause of death to be aspiration pneumonia, rib and arm fractures followed by kyphoscoliosis and epilepsy.

Ms Parker, from Kingston-upon-Thames, was on the floor for more than three hours before an ambulance took her to Kingston Hospital alone on 25 January 2021.

The jury heard she was discharged from hospital with undiagnosed rib fractures and a fracture to her left arm.

She was taken back to hospital the next morning after a carer found her left arm "swollen and black" and was treated for the "missed" fractures, and admitted.

Ms Parker, who was non-verbal, died 10 days later at the hospital, on 25 January 2021.

Coroner Lydia Brown did not give jurors leave to make findings that the paramedic treatment or any aspect of hospital care caused or contributed to Ms Parker's death.

Her sister Kim Parker said in a statement: "Fundamentally you have to be able to trust the people caring for your relatives - particularly those who can't speak for themselves.

"It's devastating to think what Lyn suffered, being dropped and hurt by the carers she trusted most at [the] care home, and then left to go to hospital on her own."

She added: "These terrible failings must not be forgotten or glossed over, and promises kept that things will improve. They have to, or Lyn will simply become another statistic, and that would be unbearable."

She had previously told the inquest her sister was "a victim of a catalogue of catastrophic failures".

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