Prevention of Future Deaths reports · 2017

Mildred Griffiths

Regulation 28 report to prevent future deaths, reference 2017-0400, written 17 Nov 2017. A coroner writes one of these when an inquest reveals a risk that could cause further deaths unless something changes.

Date of report17 Nov 2017
Reference2017-0400
DeceasedMildred Griffiths
CoronerLouise Hunt
Coroner areaBirmingham and Solihull
CategoryCare Home Health related deaths
Sourcejudiciary.uk record · original PDF
Responses published1

The report

Text recovered by OCR from a scanned PDF. OCR is imperfect: check anything you rely on against the source PDF. Reproduced verbatim, including the scan's own layout.

REGULATION 28 REPORT TO PREVENT FUTURE DEATHS

THIS REPORT IS BEING SENT TO: St Giles Nursing Home

CORONER

tam Louise Hunt Senior Coroner for Birmingham and Solihull

CORONER’S LEGAL POWERS

| make this report under paragraph 7, Schedule 5, of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and regulations
28 and 29 of the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013.

INVESTIGATION and INQUEST

On 09/08/2017 | commenced an investigation into the death of Mildred Joan Griffiths. The investigation
concluded at the end of an inquest on 16th November 2017. The conclusion of the inquest was Natural
causes.

CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DEATH

The deceased fell from a chair at her home in May 2017 resulting in a fracture of her left distal femur,
above a previous knee replacement. She was admitted to Birmingham Heartlands Hospital where she
was noted to have a grade 2 sacral pressure sore. She was discharged to St Giles nursing home for care
and rehabilitation on 02/06/17. She was largely bedbound and had poor nutrition and was unable to
tolerate re positioning which caused the sore to deteriorate. Despite treatment she collapsed in the early
hours of 03/08/17 and was declared deceased soon after arrival at hospital.

Following a post mortem, the medical cause of death was determined to be:
dia ISCHAEMIC HEART DISEASE
1b CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE

2 CARCINOMA OF LUNG WITH PNEUMONIA, PERFORATED DUODENAL ULCER WITH EARLY PERITONITIS,
SACRAL PRESSURE SORE

CORONER’S CONCERNS

During the course of the inquest the evidence revealed matters giving rise to concern. In my opinion
there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken. in the circumstances it is my statutory
duty to report to you.

The MATTERS OF CONCERN are as follows. —

1. The pressure sore risk tool used in the home is the Braden Score. The community Healthcare
Trust use the Walsall score — which is nationally recognised. | note the Braden score does not
take into account any existing lesion when calculating the risk which means it may under
estimate the risk. In addition the Braden score calculates in an opposite way to the Walsall score
—thus a low score is high risk in the Braden score, but low risk in the Walsall score. This can lead
to confusion between professionals and the home should consider changing to the Walsall
score.

ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN

In my opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and | believe you have the power to take
such action.

YOUR RESPONSE

You are under a duty to respond to this report within 56 days of the date of this report, namely by 4a"
January 2018. |, the coroner, may extend the period.

Your response must contain details of action taken or proposed to be taken, setting out the timetable for
action. Otherwise you must explain why no action is proposed.

COPIES and PUBLICATION

| have sent a copy of my report to the Chief Coroner and to the following Interested Persons:-

Family and Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

| am also under a duty to send the Chief Coroner a copy of your response.

The Chief Coroner may publish either or both in a complete or redacted or summary form. He may senda
copy of this report to any person who he believes may find it useful or of interest. You may make

representations to me, the coroner, at the time of your response, about the release or the publication of
your response by the Chief Coroner.

17/11/2017

Signature (
Louise Hunt

Senior Coroner
Birmingham and Solihull

Responses

1 response published against this report on judiciary.uk. A response is a body's written reply to the coroner's concerns; publication is at the discretion of the Chief Coroner's office, so an absent response does not mean nobody replied.

Response from Avery Health Group (PDF)
RECEIVED
12 JAN 2018

Avery

Care With A Difference

i3Y:

410" January 2018

Louise Hunt, Senior Coroner
The Coroner's Court

50 Newton Street
Birmingham

B4 6NE

Dear Ms Hunt,

Reference: Regulation 28 Report from Birmingham and Solihull Coroner to Prevent
Future Deaths relating to the death of Mildred Joan Griffiths which concluded the
death was as the result of natural causes.

| write in response to.your Regulation 28 report regarding the death of Mildred Joan Griffiths
within which you raised a matter of concern regarding use of the Braden Pressure Ulcer Risk
assessment tool at St Giles Nursing Home, Birmingham when the Community Healthcare
Trust use the Walsall Tool.

In responding to your concerns we have again reviewed the evidence available regarding
the use of pressure ulcer risk tools and would make particular reference to documents from
the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The role of NICE is to
producing evidence-based guidance and advice for health, public health and social care
practitioners, develop quality standards and performance metrics for those providing and
commissioning health, public health and social care services and provide a range of
information services for commissioners, practitioners and managers across the spectrum of
health and social care. The documents of particular relevance are:

e Pressure ulcers: prevention and management (CG179) . Evidence-based
recommendations on the prevention and management of pressure ulcers. Clinical
guideline. Published April 2014.

e Pressure ulcers. Pathway of NICE evidence on preventing and managing pressure
ulcers in all age groups in primary care and community settings in an interactive
flowchart. NICE Pathway Published January 2012. Last updated November 2017

e Pressure ulcers (QS89). Evidence-based statements to deliver quality improvements
in the prevention, assessment and management of pressure ulcers. Quality standard.
Published June 2015

In summary with regard to pressure ulcer risk assessment NICE states “Consider using a
validated scale to support clinical judgement (for example, the Braden scale, the Waterlow
score or the Norton risk-assessment scale) when assessing pressure ulcer risk”

The two most commonly used pressure ulcer risk tools in the UK are Waterlow and Braden
with no current evidence that either one is more effective at identifying risk than the other.
The use of any risk tool should not outweigh clinical judgement and there are issues around

sensitivity, specificity and also inter-rater reliability on all risk tools.

3 Cygnet Drive
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The Walsall tool is used locally by Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust and while we
have found one small study related to recent validation of the tool published in 2000, this is
limited. We also note that it was designed for use in the community and includes Carer Input
as a category which is not appropriate for use in a care home environment. This tool has
very limited use nationally and is specific to a local area. St Giles cares for patients from
Solihull and other areas who do not use the Walsall tool either. We believe that this could
also cause further confusion between professionals.

We also note the following points:

The resident who passed away on this occasion was unable to tolerate repositioning, and
would frequently reposition herself on to her back, indicating this was where she was most
comfortable and would also refuse repositioning. This would have lent itself to deterioration
of the wound, regardless of the risk assessment tool being used. The resident moved into
the home with a leg plaster cast in situ further decreasing her mobility and making
repositioning difficult.

The local Tissue Viability Nurse was supportive of the care and treatment which had been
given by the team at St Giles Nursing Home, and was aware that degradation of the wound
may occur owing to a lack of compliance with repositioning.

At Avery Healthcare we pride ourselves on the low prevalence of home acquired pressure
ulcers within our care homes. We care for over 3000 residents and have an average home
acquired prevalence of less than 1.5%. This compares to national rates of between 4.7-
32.1% in hospitals and up to 22% in nursing homes (NICE). We use the Braden risk tool to
support staff with assessing risk throughout England as it has had studies conducted
specifically for the older age group, covers the main areas of risk and has in our experience
(and for which there is weak evidence) better inter-rater reliability. The average prevalence
rate for home acquired pressure ulcers at St Giles nursing home is 2.3% year to date and
there have been several months this year where there have been no home acquired
pressure ulcers in the home. We are confident that the risk tool which we use and the
systems and staff training which we have in place are effective but have conducted a root
cause analysis in this case to ensure that organisational learning can take place.

Thus having reviewed your recommendation and the evidence we propose to continue to
use the Braden pressure ulcer risk tool but will keep this under ongoing review considering
national guidance and standards.

Yours Sincerely

(rallod .

Sandra Stark
Director of Care and Quality
Avery Healthcare Group

i
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