My brother had always celebrated his Birthday and other important events with his family at home. When he went into care the arrangements for celebrating his and other Birthday and celebrations did not change, nor were there any requests made to his family to make any changes to them. There are other communications during this period where I have had to address recurring concerns of poor and restrictive care and support of my brother, such as clothing, glasses and medication, but I have chosen to highlight the inadequate support provided to my brother on three special occasions.
As my brother’s Birthday was approaching, I sent a reminder email to the home to make arrangements for my brother to come home for his Birthday. The below is the email I sent; you will note I have included a screen capture of the email as this shows the email tracking information which displays how many times the email was opened and viewed by recipients, up until four months ago.
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My brother was denied the long-standing arrangements for family celebrations, with no request ever made to his family to make changes to established plans that had been in place for almost four decades. I recall when he arrived home on the previous visit he was wearing trousers with a broken zipper. My brother is vulnerable to coercion, and I suspect arrangements for his Birthday were for the convenience of the home and not what he wished, in part due to the lack of support provided to him.
I have included (below) a communication from Ms Sarah Sibanda (SS) claiming that one of our sisters had made a change to the established arrangements for my brother’s Birthday party with H House. After checking, I found this to be untrue; I understand our sister was surprised that he was not coming home as he had always done. His mother was very upset that I had to cancel our long-established arrangements and that he was denied a visit home for his Birthday.
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You will note in the above email from Ms SS the mention that a meeting was cancelled and clothes would be replaced. It took three months for H House and the local authority to arranged a meeting for September 2016. In regard to clothes, almost one year on, my brother is often wearing ill-fitting, unsuitable and damaged clothing.
I replied to Ms SS as follows (below). Please note the date quoted in my reply email concerning the missed Easter visit should read 21st March 2016 and not 2015)
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Later in the year, I it was my 50th Birthday, and I requested that arrangements be made for my brother to visit his family home to celebrate, as shown in my email below.
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Once more my request was met with refusal, Peter Griffith (PG) a manager of H House due claimed due to the lack of transport available, and only offering restrictive dates for a belated Birthday celebration; a significant day we will never be able to share again.
During this time, I involved a solicitor for my brother as H House was depriving my Brother of his liberty without having a DoLS order in place.
I also asked H House to send me a copy of a list of dates for Birthdays and celebratory dates, which was not received; although a list was received that was not the original or a copy and had more than 30 events missing, without explanation as to why records were missing.
Once more my request was met with refusal, PG a manager of H House due claimed due to the lack of transport available, and only offering restrictive dates for a belated Birthday celebration; a significant day we will never be able to share again.
During this time, I involved a solicitor for my brother as H House was depriving my Brother of his liberty without having a DoLS order in place.
I also asked H House to send me a copy of a list of dates for Birthdays and celebratory dates, which was not received; although a list that was not the original and had more than 30 events missing was, without explanation as to why records were missing. A redacted version of the original list can be found on the blog or here and what I received on the blog or here.
Earlier in the year my brother missed celebrating Easter with his family at home, due to H House staff not addressing my request. I sent an email requesting that an alternative employee liaises with me to arrange a visit for my brother for Easter (as below) which was ignored.
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As my email was ignored, I wrote to complain about the poor service provided to my brother and some days later emailed Mr JH of The Priory Group. JH who responded by commenting that a meeting would be taking place, once more and that I had contradicted myself. JH later sent an email of retraction and to cancel yet another meeting, as is shown in the email below; although I believe Mr JH may not have seen the emails relating to my request for Easter.
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Once more an important family event was missed due to the restrictive and inadequate support provided to my brother at H House.
As of publishing this, three more requests for family home visits have been wilfully ignored as is displayed throughout the blog