‘The care system failed my grandmother’

Colin Fry and Michelle Ruffold hold a photograph of Colin's mum Hannah Fry (Photo by Jon Rigby)

An Eastbourne woman is calling for change after she claims the care system “failed” her late grandmother.

Michelle Ruffold claimed her grandmother Hannah Fry ended up a “fraction of the person she went in as” after being a patient at Dorley House Care Home in Bedfordwell Road.

She said, “We put her into care to look after her. Nobody has taken responsibility or apologised. We have been fighting all this time. The care system failed her.”

Mrs Ruffold said her family eventually filed a safeguarding complaint to adult social care raising concerns for the welfare of the 96-year-old, who suffered dementia.

Hannah Isabel Fry before and after she was a resident at Dorley House Care Home in Eastbourne (Photo by Jon Rigby)

Among their complaints were “serious hygiene issues”, including finding her with faeces on her hands and under her nails, and Mrs Fry not showering in 12 days.

Mrs Ruffold said, “They took her dignity from her, it’s disgusting. There was an appalling lack of hygiene. They didn’t seem to have any kind of compassion.”

The family said they would find piles of dirty, faeces-stained, clothes on her bedroom floor and in her wardrobe, as well as other people’s clothes.

The family also said her false teeth were not cleaned, resulting in rotting food building up on them.