Dementia patient went missing all night from 'outstanding' care home

A doctor has criticised a care home rated "outstanding" where staff did not notice for more than four hours that her 80-year-old father was missing.

More than 24 hours after dementia sufferer Gordon Holmes wandered out of the north London home, a passer-by found him looking dazed and sunburnt and took him to hospital.

Sara Holmes went to visit her father at £875-a-week Spring Lane residential home at 4.30pm on July 14. Staff could not find him and called police when they realised how long he had been gone.

CCTV footage showed him leaving the home at 11.50 that morning. He was not found until 12.30pm the next day on Crouch End Hill, two miles from the home in Fortis Green.

He was taken to Whittington Hospital by a kindly stranger and treated for dehydration. He cannot remember where he spent the night. His daughter suspects he was on the streets.

Dr Holmes, of Fortis Green, said: "How can a dementia patient be able to walk out and for four hours no staff notice he is missing? If I hadn't turned up to see him, when would they have noticed?" Mr Holmes, who was a structural engineer, pays for his own care. His daughter, who has since moved him to another home, in North Finchley, claims he has not been offered adequate compensation.

The home waived the one-month notice fee but Dr Holmes said: "My father paid nearly £4,000 a month to live in that home. This company continued to take his fees as if nothing had happened. He is due some recompense for the lapse in care which must have been extremely bewildering, if not downright frightening."

Spring Lane is rated "outstanding" by the Care Quality Commission. Dr Robin Powell, the home's medical director, said: "We are very sorry Mr Holmes went out for a walk and lost his way. As soon as his absence was noted, staff called police and a search was made. He was returned, unharmed. Spring Lane is not a secure unit and residents are free to come and go. We have apologised for the understandable anxiety that may have been caused."