Long-serving care home manager who shared images on Facebook left jobless

A care home manager, who spent 21 years working at a care home in Reigate is unemployed, following her suspension for posting residents' images on Facebook, a year before the home is to be shut down.

Rachel Burns posted photographs and a video of residents singing and having fun at the Park Hall Resource Centre in Reigate last October to celebrate Halloween. But two months later, Surrey County Council began disciplinary procedures against Ms Burns for breaching its social media policy by identifying a resident.

One image posted on Facebook shows members of an amateur singing group namely Ms Burns, Reverend David Walford and Roy Matthews, while another image shows residents enjoying a music evening at the home.

After being suspended as part of a disciplinary investigation for alleged inappropriate use of social media, Ms Burns claims council bosses told her last May to take a new role with a 50 per cent pay cut or accept dismissal. Ms Burns decided to reject the demotion.

‘Alternative employment was offered’

A spokesman for the county council said: "Alternative employment was offered but it is up to the staff member to decide whether to accept or go elsewhere. We wish Ms Burns all the best for the future."

Relatives of two residents pictured in Ms Burns' Facebook post have said they had no concerns about their loved ones images being shared on Facebook.

In her defence, Ms Burns, a runner-up for the council’s employee of the year award, offered the council documents including one from 2011 sent by the council's chief executive, David McNulty, who thanked her for sending photographs of residents having fun to the newspaper Surrey Mirror.

Ms Burns said the council also accused her of adding a resident's relative as a friend on Facebook but she claims she did so to see a closed Facebook group called ‘Save Park Hall’ set up by the resident’s relative, after the council announced plans to shut the home.

Council halfway through shutting down six care homes in Surrey

Surrey County Council is in the process of shutting down six care homes in Surrey.

Two were closed last summer, two have been shut this summer and two, including Park Hall Resource Centre will be closed next summer.

The council has highlighted on its website: ‘Surrey County Council is facing enormous financial pressures driven by spiralling demand for services such as elderly care and school places.

'Nearly £330 million has been saved from the council’s budget in the past five years but increased demand alone has accounted for nearly all of this.

'With demand for services continuing to rise and savings becoming harder and harder to find, pressures include: social care support costing an extra £20 million every year.’

A spokesman for the county council said: “The most important thing is to make sure older people receive the very best care. We’re helping many more people stay in their own homes until much later in life and increasingly they require almost constant nursing when they do go into care, which our homes can no longer continue to cope with.”

Ms Burns has said the loss of her job as manager at the home after 21 years at Park Hall had been a blow, financially and emotionally particularly as her partner Gary, has a brain tumour.

Residents’ families and members of the local community have expressed support for the home and its former manager.

Vicar praises home in carehome.co.uk review

Writing in a review posted on carehome.co.uk last December, Reverend David Walford, who attended the music evenings where residents were photographed for the Facebook post, said: “I visit the care home on an almost weekly basis. I am deeply impressed by the standards of love and care - it really does have a "family" feel to it. It is superbly managed and continually demonstrated very high standards. Friendliness is always apparent.”

In a Care Quality Commission report, inspectors who last visited in April 2013 said: 'Staff demonstrated warmth and respect towards the people they were supporting. People who used the service were protected from the risk of abuse, because the provider had taken reasonable steps to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent abuse from happening, the provider had a set of written policies and procedures covering adult protection, safeguarding and whistle blowing.'

Clive Freeman, the son of a resident, said in a review on carehome.co.uk in September 2014. ”Sorry but I can't find anything wrong with Park Hall, my mum always said where did I find such a great home. They made the last years of her life really enjoyable for her, which I thought to be fantastic.”