'Dad deserved care from properly trained nursing home staff'

Even without obvious signs of ill health and medical emergencies being overlooked, the treatment Mr Hubbard received left much to be desired.

Staff appeared to have little time to devote to him and he frequently received his medicines late. For sufferers of Parkinsons Disease like Mr Hubbard this can leave them feeling, according to experts, as if they are trapped inside their own bodies and can lead to irreparable damage.

Miss Hubbard, 50, who works with the charity Parkinsons UK to raise awareness of the condition, added: Weve got an ageing population and we shouldnt be treating our elderly people like this. The average time people spend in a nursing home is just six months before they die and you have to ask why they seem to decline so quickly?

Mr Hubbard entered the home in June 2012, after his condition began to worsen. He had previously been looked after four times a day by carers at the house he shared with his elderly wife in Sunderland, though even at this stage Miss Hubbard had her concerns.

George Hubbard (far left) who died while suffering from Parkinson's

She said: Me and my brother would go around there to see him and find we still had to clean him up and my mum, who is 77, was finding it more and more difficult to cope. The care workers were so busy they would spend just 10 or 15 minutes with him before rushing off to their next client. I began to realise that pretty much anyone could walk in off the street and get a job as a carers, with no qualifications and barely any training.

The home care agency paid the minimum wage and that, in Miss Hubbards view, along with the low status of care work in general, failed to attract the right calibre of person for such a demanding job.

The situation failed to improve when Mr Hubbards children found him a place at the Falstone Court and Manor nursing home, run by private provider HC-One, and paid for by his local authority.

Miss Hubbard soon noticed that while many of the individual staff worked hard, were warm and sensitive and tried to build a rapport with the residents, they were not only rushed off their feet, but lacked the training and experience to cope.

On her fathers floor, where the over-65s lived, there were 20 patients with sometimes just two or three carers looking after them.

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'Dad deserved care from properly trained nursing home staff'