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Sevenoaks: West Kent Neuro Rehabilitation Unit, now named Knole Centre, to close this month

A neurological unit where the poor care of a severely disabled man was captured on camera will close this month.

Staff at the West Kent Neuro Rehabilitation Unit in Sevenoaks were filmed leaving Grant Clarke in urine-soaked sheets, cleaning his feeding tube with a Biro and giving him water when he was nil-by-mouth.

The 45-year-old was left paralysed down the left-hand side of his body after suffering a large brain haemorrhage in 2012, but health bosses insist the closure is not linked to Mr Clarke's case.

The Sevenoaks neuro rehabilitation unit
The Sevenoaks neuro rehabilitation unit

In a report produced by the Medway Clinical Commissioning Group issues involving service quality, safety and cost were cited as reasons for the closure.

Kent and Medway NHS and Social Partnership Trust originally planned to close the centre in April 2016. The date has been brought forward to December 24 because of issues with staffing levels which would make it "clinically unsafe" to keep the facility, now named Knole Centre, open over Christmas.

The report also states negative publicity about the unit has had a significant effect on the service's ability to recruit and retain staff and this influenced the decision to cease service provision.

Patients will now receive care from other local private and NHS providers.

A spokesman for the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust said: “We gave a year’s formal notice to commissioners in April 2015 that the Trust would no longer be in a position to provide the neuro rehabilitation service.

"Due to issues involving the high cost of providing a quality and safe service, it was determined that it was not sustainable to continue with it. Commissioners have been able to put alternative plans.

“Our staff are highly valued and anyone currently working at the Knole Centre will be redeployed to other areas across the trust.”

A nurse appears to attempt to clean Mr Clarke's feeding tube with a biro. Picture: BBC Newsnight
A nurse appears to attempt to clean Mr Clarke's feeding tube with a biro. Picture: BBC Newsnight

Covert cameras were set up at the unit when family members noticed a significant change in the Mr Clarke's demeanour. The father-of-three began to claim staff were mistreating him.

Mr Clarke's wife Binny planted a covert camera in an iPod docking station and was shocked at what it captured.

Footage showed her husband being left to lie in his own urine for hours and staff pulling a help buzzer from his hands.

"Due to issues involving the high cost of providing a quality and safe service, it was determined that it was not sustainable to continue with it." - NHS Trust

Sections were aired on BBC Newsnight in 2013. Family members also claimed staff spoke to Mr Clarke, who is the director of an IT company, very inappropriately and sternly.

At the time issues were raised, a spokesman for Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust said it was "appalled" at the shocking footage and apologised for its failings.

In a statement to Newsnight the trust added: "We subsequently created a robust action plan to address all concerns," and said that compulsory, specialist training for all staff was being introduced

Out of 26 complaints made to the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, 22 were upheld.

As a result of the covert recordings, nurses Marie Banwell, Sarah Coulter and Vanessa Kennard were charged with misconduct.

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