A CARE home in Callington will be featured in the BBC programme Panorama tonight (Monday) after a series of shocking incidents were secretly filmed in several privately-run residential nursing homes in Cornwall.

St Theresa’s Care Centre was one of several run by the Morleigh Group which was exposed for poor treatment of vulnerable residents.

Panorama filmed over four weeks on hidden cameras, with three undercover reporters posing as a resident and care assistants at St Theresa’s and at Clinton House in St Austell, which has subsequently closed.

Some of the most serious incidents occurred at Clinton House, including a resident being given morphine to ’shut her up’, overworked staff and out-of-date prescription supplements being re-labelled and issued to a patient for whom it had not been originally prescribed.

Following the filming, the Panorama team raised safeguarding concerns with the local authority.

In a statement, Morleigh Care Group said: ’With regards to recent concerns, we have already been made aware of issues as a result of a report by the BBC One show Panorama. Our investigations to date, and indeed prior to the receipt of information from Panorama, have resulted in the removal of the staff involved, together with a thorough review of our systems and procedures.’

Cornwall Council, which placed residents at both are homes, said the Panorama team had co-operated in describing what it observed to the council to aid its investigation.

Trevor Doughty, Cornwall Council’s strategic director for children, families and adults, said: ’Residents of care homes, and their relatives, have a right to expect that they are safe, that they are well looked after and that they are treated at all times with dignity and respect.

We are informed that the programme will highlight very serious and specific concerns about the care offered, We haven’t yet seen any footage that will be shown on Monday night, but the programme makers have co-operated in describing what they observed to us and answered most of our questions to aid our investigation.’

Mr Doughty said there had been ongoing quality and safeguarding concerns about the homes within the Morleigh Group over some time. He said it was the are Quality Commision’s job to license, inspect and rate private homes and they had done so repeatedly, having inspected Morleigh Group homes over recent years.

The council is now waiting to hear the results of the latest CQC inspections into the four homes and will respond as appropriate, including discussion with residents and their relatives.

Mr Doughty added: ’We’ll all be watching the programme on Monday when it is broadcast and if anything fresh comes to our attention as a result, which wasn’t covered in what we were told by Panorama in writing, of course we will act on that immediately.’

Panorama: Nursing Homes Under Cover will be broadcast at 8.30pm on BBC One on Monday, November 21.