Care home director struck off after Bracknell death
Frances Norris, 93, died three days after being put into a scalding bath at Birdsgrove Nursing Home in 2015
Last updated 6th Jun 2025
A director of a care company fined for corporate manslaughter, after the death of a dementia patient, has been struck off the nursing register.
Frances Norris, 93, died three days after being put into a scalding bath at Birdsgrove Nursing Home, Bracknell, in 2015.
Mrs Norris had been in the bath for ‘several minutes’ before a carer and junior carer realised the water was too hot.
She was later taken to hospital where it was found 12 per cent of her body was covered in serious burns.
Sheth Jeebun was director of Aster Healthcare Limited, which was fined for corporate manslaughter in 2021. But Mr Jeebun was not prosecuted.
Home manager Elisabeth West was given a nine-month jail term, suspended for 18 months. Carer Noel Maida was sentenced to 16 weeks, suspended for 18 months.
Aster Healthcare, which owned the home, later falsified water temperature records it submitted to the Care Quality Commission and the Health and Safety Executive, the Royal Courts of Justice was told in 2021.
Now Mr Jeebun has been found to show a ‘long term disregard for patient safety’ with the incident part of a ‘pattern of serious failings’ by a Nursing and Midwifery Council panel.
The panel found the risk of residents being scalded was ‘entirely forseeable’ and had been ‘aggravated by cost-cutting at the expense of safety’.
While several organisations had raised concerns about the home’s thermostatic mixing valves, Mr Jeebun set a £200 spending limit for staff that could not be exceeded without his approval.
The report said Mr Jeebun tried to replace the valve in the bath where Mrs Norris was scalded before investigators could seize it.
He also told a junior colleague to fabricate records of water temperatures or face losing his job, the report found.
In March 2020 Mr Jeebun wrote to the Nursing and Midwifery Council to have his nursing resignation cancelled voluntarily. This was still while under a police investigation.
But the council said this showed his ‘lack of insight and absence of accountability’.
A family statement released in 2021 said Mrs Norris had been ‘robbed of her independence’ in the later part of her life and was dependent on carers.
They said: “That trust was shattered when she died at the hands of the care staff at Birdsgrove Nursing Home who were there to look afeter her and keep her safe.”
The family described Mrs Norris as ‘warm, generous and kind-hearted’, and said they ‘finally got some justice’.
The company was fined a total of £1.04 million, and Mr Jeebun has been struck off.