THE owner of a Bury residential care home has been fined £7,000 after an accident involving a lift left a disabled resident severely injured.

Bessie Bridge, an 82-year-old double amputee, fractured a femur. She died in hospital a fortnight later from unrelated causes.

Under health and safety legislation, Bury Council prosecuted Patricia Margaret Bradley, the proprietor and registered manager of the 32-bed Limefield Court Care Home on Limefield Road.

Bradley, of Brookfield Road, Bury,was also ordered to pay £4,400 prosecution costs to Bury Council.

The council's Environmental Health team had launched an investigation after receiving a report about an accident at the home on February 1 last year. It resulted in Bradley appearing before Bury magistrates where she admitted two charges relating to inadequate safety procedures.

The court was told that Mrs Bridge had been trying to enter the lift, even though it had broken down during the night when it had trapped a member of staff and another resident.

Although two small signs were placed next to the lift warning it was out of order, Mrs Bridge was not warned verbally and the lift door was left open with the lift car light left on.

Mrs Bridge failed to notice an eight to ten inch gap between the level of the lift and her own wheelchair. The sudden drop caused her to be thrown from her wheelchair, injuring her severely and landing her in the lift where she was found later that morning.

Mr James Corbridge, a specialist mechanical engineering inspector, told the court in a written statement that the front wheels of the chair suddenly dropping between 200 to 300 mm would be enough to cause someone to fall from their wheelchair if the drop was unexpected.

The court was also told that on January 29 last year, just days before the accident, a routine inspection revealed a lack of workplace risk assessments, a lack of instruction and information to staff on workplace hazards and a lack of a thorough examination for the passenger lift.

Following the January 29 inspection several improvement notices were subsequently served on the home.

Staff told investigators of "ad hoc" procedures to deal with lift breakdowns with no formal instruction on procedures.

A day carer also said she had assumed night staff had warned residents about the breakdown.

Council inspector Ruth Drury discovered procedures relating to the lift were insufficient with a lack of written procedures for dealing with the lift breakdown.

She also discovered that no risk assessment had been made for the lift and that health and safety training for staff had not covered lift breakdown procedures and health and safety matters connected with it.

Bradley was fined £5,000 for failing to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that persons other than employees were not exposed to risks to their health and safety. She was fined a further £2,000 on a second charge of failing to have the lift thoroughly examined by an independent lift specialist.

In sentencing, magistrates agreed that Limefield Court was a generally well-run care home. Neither offence was committed deliberately or recklessly and Bradley was credited for her early guilty pleas.

After the case, Councillor Mike Connolly, Bury Council's executive member for environment and transport, said, "This is a truly sad case which underlines the importance of proprietors following the correct health and safety procedures and ensuring staff are properly trained."