Mark A
Established Member
Hi chaps,
I'm not sure what to do about this.
Yesterday around 2pm I was working on my parent's house upstairs. I heard shouting outside and then my mother screamed from the front door. I ran down to find a big bloke coming through the kitchen after forcing the front door open and pushing past my mother, with another two older men following. One of the men immediately gestured for me to stay calm, and at that moment I noticed their ID's on lanyards around their necks and a group of people milling around on the driveway. The bloke looked around the kitchen, took a bottle of vinegar from a cupboard and drunk about a pint before he was eventually escorted out by the carers. The big bloke was an escaped patient of the care home for people with severe learning and behavioural difficulties up the road from the house. Apparently he made his way outside and started running down the road, with a group of staff chasing him, and this happened to be the first house he came across.
The manager appeared soon afterwards and apologised profusely, saying the electronic door locks had malfunctioned and that it will never happen again. Thinking about it later that day I remembered a similar incident a year or two ago where someone managed to get halfway down the road from the facility before being coaxed back by staff, so it's actually not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
It's bad enough that someone who was obviously suffering from a mental illness could escape from the care home, forcibly push his way into a house before the staff caught up with him; but what if they didn't realise he was missing? What if he had drunk the bleach or paint thinner which both happened to be on the worktop at that time? What if he had become violent? What if he had continued down to the main road instead of diverting to my parent's house?
I'm not sure whether this is worth reporting to the Care Inspectorate for Wales, for the sake of him and his family. Or am I overreacting?
Mark
I'm not sure what to do about this.
Yesterday around 2pm I was working on my parent's house upstairs. I heard shouting outside and then my mother screamed from the front door. I ran down to find a big bloke coming through the kitchen after forcing the front door open and pushing past my mother, with another two older men following. One of the men immediately gestured for me to stay calm, and at that moment I noticed their ID's on lanyards around their necks and a group of people milling around on the driveway. The bloke looked around the kitchen, took a bottle of vinegar from a cupboard and drunk about a pint before he was eventually escorted out by the carers. The big bloke was an escaped patient of the care home for people with severe learning and behavioural difficulties up the road from the house. Apparently he made his way outside and started running down the road, with a group of staff chasing him, and this happened to be the first house he came across.
The manager appeared soon afterwards and apologised profusely, saying the electronic door locks had malfunctioned and that it will never happen again. Thinking about it later that day I remembered a similar incident a year or two ago where someone managed to get halfway down the road from the facility before being coaxed back by staff, so it's actually not the first time this sort of thing has happened.
It's bad enough that someone who was obviously suffering from a mental illness could escape from the care home, forcibly push his way into a house before the staff caught up with him; but what if they didn't realise he was missing? What if he had drunk the bleach or paint thinner which both happened to be on the worktop at that time? What if he had become violent? What if he had continued down to the main road instead of diverting to my parent's house?
I'm not sure whether this is worth reporting to the Care Inspectorate for Wales, for the sake of him and his family. Or am I overreacting?
Mark
