THE family of an elderly woman with dementia who needed to be put on a drip for five weeks after hardly eating or drinking anything for days at a care home is calling for further investigation.

Kevin and Stephen O’Connor have raised a number of concerns about Bemerton Lodge, a care home where their mother Mary spent 18 months before she was rushed to hospital one day last year with severe dehydration.

They say that despite a safeguarding investigation conducted by Wiltshire Mental Heath Social Work Team and a review of that investigation, they are still waiting for answers about why their mother, who suffers from neuralgia, was not given additional pain relief, had hardly eaten or drunk anything for days and why it took so long for the care home to raise concerns.

Kevin O’Connor who received the final correspondence relating to the investigation in March, said: “Our mother was on the brink of death with doctors at the hospital telling us she was unlikely to make it through and one saying that she was in such a state that she looked more like 95 years old rather than 75.

“Now she is in a new care home and she is much better and eating lots.

“This happened due to a complete collapse in the system.

The family first became aware of the problem when the care home in Christie Miller Road, Salisbury, asked their permission to change Mrs O’Connor’s GP in July 2015 as she had been in pain for ten days from neuralgia and Bemerton Heath Surgery was not providing a satisfactory service. Four days later she was taken to hospital.

The safeguarding investigation highlighted that since the retirement of a GP a couple of months before, the care home had “not felt as supported by the surgery as they had previously”.

It also noted that the care home failed to record food and fluid intake and failed to adequately record the efforts made by staff to encourage Mrs O’Connor to eat.

Stephen O’Connor said the care home, run by the Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT), failed in their duty of care and the subsequent investigations were inadequate, diluting all responsibility from those who should be held accountable.

He said: “We feel deeply let down – it is almost like no one really cares and it is all too much bother to carry out a thorough investigation.”

Robin Khokhar, assistant operations director for OSJCT in Wiltshire, said the matter was “fully investigated by Wiltshire Council Safeguarding team and internally according to our own policies and procedures” but when it came to GP services, it was unable to comment on individual cases.

He added: “We were very sorry Mrs O’Connor became unwell. I met Mrs O’Connor’s family to discuss their concerns and to reassure them the issues they had raised had been examined in detail and addressed where necessary.”

Sharon Burgess of Salisbury Medical Centre which runs the Bemerton Heath Surgery branch said patient confidentiality restricted what they could say.