FAMILIES have been urged to look at nursing and care home inspection reports before deciding where their relatives should live.

It follows incidents at the former Hollins Nursing Home, Red Lees Road, Cliviger, which led to the joint proprietor Margaret Theresa Saunders being banned from working as a nurse..

Mrs Saunders was found guilty on three counts of professional misconduct including leaving two patients covered in diarrhoea and porridge and ordering staff not to clean them.

Proprietor of Holme Manor Residential Home, Townsendfold, Rawtenstall, Michael Bird is a member of the North East Lancashire Community and Care Homes Association and Lancashire Care Homes Association.

He advised families to read inspection reports. "These documents are in the public domain, social services have residential home reports and the health authority have nursing home inspections. The report on Holme Manor is on our web site," he said.

"All reasonable and respectable homes abhor this sort of thing and the nurse and care assistant are to be praised for bringing it to the attention of the authorities. It proves the system works. This home was not a member of the NELCHA or LCHA."

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