Ombudsman Blasts “Unacceptable” Care of Parc Inmate

A scathing report from the prisons ombudsman has revealed serious failings in the care of Frederick Heard, who died while serving a 16-year sentence at Bridgend’s Parc prison for sexual offences against children. 📋

The report, published almost six years after Heard’s death in August 2019, found the standard of his dementia care was “completely unacceptable” according to ombudsman Sue McAllister.

Heard, 87, from Ringland in Newport, had been jailed in 2012 after being convicted of multiple sexual offences against three girls over a 30-year period ending in the mid-1990s.

The investigation revealed that several years into his sentence, Heard “had no idea that he was serving a sentence in prison and that being locked in a cell caused him mental distress and physical injury.”

Despite prison GPs making frequent referrals to the local mental health team for older adults from December 2012, the service refused to help with his care because it was “not resourced to see prison patients” – a situation that continued unresolved for years.

By July 2017, staff held a multidisciplinary meeting as they were “concerned because Mr Heard was distressed because he did not understand he was in prison and was injuring himself banging on his cell door at night.”

In March 2019, padding was fitted to Heard’s cell door for his safety, but days later he was hospitalised with a hand injury from banging on the door. He developed pneumonia during this 10-day hospital stay.

Upon returning to Parc, his health significantly deteriorated, particularly his breathlessness from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). After another hospitalisation in July, he died of bronchopneumonia in August 2019, receiving compassionate release on the day of his death.

“I am very concerned that arguments about who was funded to assess and support Mr Heard’s dementia meant that his needs were not met and that this significantly affected his quality of life,” wrote McAllister.

A clinical reviewer concluded: “It appears somewhere in this argument over funding that managers or clinicians in the NHS health board forgot that a patient was suffering at the heart of this, leading to significant distress for him, other prisoners, and indeed the HMP Parc staff doing their best for him.”

The report found prison staff failed to adequately monitor Heard’s COPD, while Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (now Swansea Bay University health board) failed for years to provide appropriate specialist dementia care.

Healthcare responsibility at the prison has since transferred to Cwm Taf Morgannwg University health board.