Health board admits failings that led to dementia patient’s death

NHS Tayside admitted failing to ensure that patients who were assessed as being fall risks in Tummel Ward were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

They failed to provide an adequate system of work for ensuring that room movement sensor alarms were checked daily to make sure they functioned properly, and failed to ensure the system of work was being followed.

The health board also admitted failing to have sufficient bed pad alarms available on 5 January 2024 for patients in the ward who required them.

Defence counsel Peter Gray offered the health board’s apologies to Imrie’s family and said the organisation accepted its failings contributed to her death.

He said the health board had issued advice to all of its sub-organisations about how to deal with the risk of falls just three months before the tragic incident.

Gray said the failings were “not in any sense deliberate and were isolated failings in the management of risks”.

“It arose as a result of a genuine, but misplaced, opinion that the placing of sensors and bed alarms were suitable,” he added.

He said the health board had since taken steps to prevent any repeat of the incident.

Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC said she had been given 500 pages of background documents earlier this week and deferred sentence to allow time to read them.