Lessons From Tragedy; Would Sprinklers Have Saved Nursing Home Lives?

The Herald › February 02, 2004

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Summary

PRAYERS were said in chur-ches across Scotland yesterday to remember those who died in the fire at Rosepark Care Home in Uddingston on Saturday. The public paid tributes to the victims by laying flowers at the scene. The first minister, Jack McConnell, has asked for a report to cabinet on Wednesday, while Dr John Reid, Westminster health secretary and MP for the area, acknowledges the disaster could have UK-wide implications. For the families of those who died, and the staff who looked after them, the loss of each individual is unique and personal. Such is the scale of this disaster, however, the worst in a British care home for 30 years, that there is now a general urge to try to explain, to make sense of and, above all, to ensure the same could not happen again.

It is an understandable reaction, made more so by the fact that so many other families will have parents or grandparents in care homes. What makes the Rosepark disaster so shocking is that this was, by all accounts, a modern, well-designed nursing home where the staff and owners were caring and conscientious. Everything appears to have been done by the book. The Care Commission last inspected on November 17 and found the home up to standard. Staffing levels met legal requirements and a fire drill was held just last week. The fire itself started in a cupboard and spread only a few feet, and the emergency services arrived within minutes. All of which begs the question that if the worst could happen in what seems to be one of the better nursing homes, what might be waiting to occur in those which fall short of the mark? As an investigation by The Herald showed last year, there is a wide variation in standards around the country.