Last days of Georgie O’Shaughnessy... a story of dedicated, 24-hour NHS care and ill-trained agency staff

Published: 11 March, 2011
by PETER GRUNER

HIGHBURY writer and journalist Hugh O’Shaughnessy spoke movingly this week of the “near miraculous” care his dying wife Georgie received from the NHS.

However, he also said that in the final weeks of her life, when she was at home, night care for Georgie, 73, became “inexpert” after a private agency whose staff appeared “ill-trained” became involved.

The agency carers were often late and even took to sleeping by Georgie’s bedside not long after turning up, he claimed.

But Mr O’Shaughnessy, 76, gives special praise to individuals and organisations who made sure his wife was pain-free and given quality care in the months leading up to her death from a brain tumour on January 10.

They include her GP, Linden Ruckett, team leader with Islington’s Palliative Care Service, Bridget Clarence-Smith, the Marie Curie charity, Whittington Hospital, St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney and Islington Council care staff.

Mr O’Shaughnessy wrote about his experiences during his wife’s illness for the Guardian newspaper, where he is a regular contributor on Latin America.

The article touched a nerve with readers. More than 200 people, many with similar experiences, added comments on the news­paper’s website.

Mother-of-four Georgie – the couple have seven grandchildren – taught dyslexic pupils at local schools before she retired.

The couple, who had been married for 50 years, met while both were students at Oxford University. They were members of Canonbury Society.

Speaking at his home in Northampton Park, Mr O’Shaughnessy said he was hugely impressed with the NHS.

He was particularly grateful to Dr Ruckett, from The Miller Practice in Highbury New Park. “She frequently visited, came out to our home in times of crisis, backed up by district nurses, and was always accessible on her mobile phone,” he said. 

With a phone call Dr Ruckett got Georgie into St Joseph’s Hospice for periods of special attention.

At home, skilled NHS palliative care staff led by Ms Clarence-Smith were constantly on hand, even organising traffic and parking concessions for the couple’s car.

Mr O’Shaughnessy added: “They installed an adaptable hospital bed in her bedroom, and operated a machine installed by Islington Council that allowed her to take a bath. Later, when a bath became impossible even with the machine, two carers – one Polish, one from Sierra Leone – came to wash her every morning.”

Marie Curie night staff were “superb”, he says, with conscientious, well-trained and punctilious personnel.

However, night carers from a private agency used by the NHS meant standards fell low. They “seemed inexpert, ill-trained and with a tendency to settle down to sleep shortly after they arrived at the bedside of the person they were expected to look after throughout the night”.

Distrusting the agency staff, Mr O’Shaughnessy took to sleeping in the same room as Georgie, sending the carer into another room.

He added: “Then the carers began coming late. The person expected at 10pm on Christmas Eve arrived at 12.15am on Christmas morning. Apparently, her managers, truculent people unwilling to listen to suggestions, had not organised the minicab from her south London home.

“On a subsequent evening two carers arrived, each claiming to have been sent by their managers. 

“The NHS had, I later gathered, been obliged to take the second-class service offered by a disorganised offshoot of some US corporation. Unsurprisingly, its low standards allowed it to undercut Marie Curie’s bid for the work.

“It seemed bizarre that the NHS was manoeuvred by an aggressive privatisation lobby into accepting a clearly inferior service from a company run from a country incapable of organising a health service for its own citizens.”

A service for Georgie at St John’s Church, Duncan Terrace, Angel, was conducted by Father Howard Jones. She is buried in St Patrick’s cemetery in Leytonstone.