Miss E J Scott v Cornwall County Council

The Tribunal unanimously allows the appeal and directs that the decision of the Respondent shall not have effect.

REASONS

Background

The Appellant is a well qualified nurse of some 20 years experience including six years as a ward sister in various hospitals. In March 1984 she became joint purchaser and matron of a private nursing home in Bournemouth where she remained in charge until late 1988. In about June 1988 she moved to Cornwall with a view to purchasing Wynberg Residential Home. She submitted an application form for registration in July. No doubt assuming the successful outcome of her application, she took a risk and purchased the home as a going concern on 1st August. The registration officer received several satisfactory references from her nominated referees, but one of these included a paragraph mentioning her "very volatile nature, which on occasions has upset her patients relatives and staff. She is aware of this and tries to control this fault to the best of her ability.". The registration officer very properly followed this up with a phone call to the referee concerned. He made notes of what he thought to be the substance of what was said, and from those notes he dictated a further note for the file. The file note recorded a wide range of matters which, if true, suggested that Miss Scott could not possibly be regarded as a fit person. A confirmatory letter was received on 8th August which 'rang alarm bells', to quote the registration officer. That letter consisted largely of information about complaints which were stated to be 'unsubstantiated' and other unsatisfactory matters connected with the running of the nursing home. It mentioned "volatile temperament" almost incidentally and gave no details of that whatsoever. The reliance placed in turn by the registration officer, his seniors, and the panel of councillors, on the file note and the second letter was clearly very considerable. There was nothing else adverse written about the Appellant.

The Grounds for Refusal

It was alleged that:

The Tribunal's Conclusions

The file note which recorded the many damaging remarks concerning the way in which the Appellant had been running the nursing home was demonstrated in cross-examination to be a thoroughly unreliable summary of what had been said, and of what the referee had intended to convey, during the telephone conversation. We were quite satisfied also, after hearing the Respondent's witnesses, that the incidents described in the confirmatory letter did not support paragraph (a) of the statement of reasons. The extensive reliance upon the documents by the Respondent's officers and the panel of councillors was natural, but was shown to have been entirely misplaced and to have brought about the decision to refuse registration.

The evidence given by the Respondent's witnesses did not really suggest that the residents, relatives and staff of the nursing home in Bournemouth had been upset by the personality and manner of the Appellant as alleged in paragraph (b), it indicated that on about three occasions she reacted verbally rather strongly and certainly unwisely towards three different members of the staff of the East Dorset Health Authority. We permitted the Respondent to rely on that evidence, but having heard the Appellant and read the affidavits of her witnesses we came to the following conclusion. The events on those occasions chiefly concerned outbursts of indignation on her part which were to some extent justified and all, save perhaps one, occurred during a period when for very understandable and personal reasons she was under considerable emotional strain.

On such slender grounds it was not proved to our satisfaction that the Appellant, in the terms of section 9(a) of the Act, "is not a fit person to be concerned in carrying on a residential care home" - accordingly we allowed the appeal.

We considered it desirable to announce our decision at the hearing. The Appellant had been running Wynberg Residential Home for some eight months as an unregistered proprietor. The registration officer on instructions had visited the home no less than 21 times, on 17 of which the Appellant was present. He had not encountered any difficulties, or experienced any unpleasantness or acrimony on the Appellant's part. The evidence we heard gave us no reason whatsoever to suppose that she lacks any of the skills or qualities required for the caring of elderly people and we urged the immediate attention of both parties respectively to the perfecting and processing of the application for registration.

30 March 1989