When people trust their elderly, infirm or ill relatives to a care home, they do so under the proviso that their family members will be properly looked after.

Horrific stories of abuse and neglect have been a great source of discomfort in recent years for anyone who has a relative in residential care, but thankfully those sorts of terrible incidents are newsworthy exactly because they are few and far between.

The great majority of care providers in this country do a wholly appropriate job in looking after the needs of people who are too old to live alone or suffer from illnesses such as dementia.

That said, there are also problems that while not attributable to malicious intent can still be as devastating. That’s what has happened in the case of Kathleen Askham, who died after falling down a set of stairs at the nursing home where she was a resident.

Mrs Askham had managed to gain access to areas of the home that should have been off-limits to vulnerable residents through the simple act of someone not locking a door leading from the residential areas to the staff-only sections. It had tragic consequences.

Running a care home and working in one are not responsibilities to be taken lightly. Staff must be on their guard at all times, processes must be in place to prevent accidents happening and must be fool-proof and regularly tested.

No-one who is in the business of care can afford to take their eye off the ball for a single second where vulnerable adults are concerned, and if this tragedy sends out any message to other care homes in the district, it is that they must be always watchful and constantly update and review their safety procedures.