A grieving son has blasted an “insincere” apology from a care home after his elderly mother died of a stroke.

In October we reported that Simon Berry, 58, and his brother Nick had set up CCTV in their mother’s room at St Martin’s care home in Larkfield.

It captured three occasions when staff left without ensuring the 83-year-old had taken her anti-stroke medication, which she spat out and hid.

Within weeks Eileen Berry had suffered a massive stroke causing severe brain damage, leaving the grandmother unable to speak.

Her family moved her to another care home but she never recovered and in December she had another stroke and died.

Mr Berry wrote to the ombudsman in October, weeks before his mum’s death, complaining about care home owners The Abbeyfield Kent Society, the medication, and saying they offered Mrs Berry a place on a “home for life” basis, not telling the family they intended to close St Martin’s.

The family say Mrs Berry’s anxiety increased when she found out the home was being demolished for development.

The ombudsman said he upheld the family’s complaint, in that “the care provider failed to update (Mrs Berry’s) care plan and risk assessment” following a mental health assessment.

He ruled this breached the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Fundamental Standards and has reported the matter to them.

The ombudsman ordered Abbeyfields to apologise, which it did with a two-paragraph letter from Laurence Fowler-Stevens, director of corporate services.

It began: “I write as directed by the Local Government Ombudsman to apologise to you for the fact we failed to update your mother’s care plan and risk assessment.”

But Mr Berry, of Aylesford, said: “We can’t accept the apology. It’s insincere and lacks feeling.

“It reads like a child in detention who’s been forced to say sorry.”

Mr Berry is also upset the letter refers to his late mum as “he” not “her”, although he accepts this could be a typing error.

The ombudsman said Abbeyfields had not made the decision to close St Martin’s when Mrs Berry moved in and “it is not possible to say how often she secreted medication, if staff would have been aware of this, or whether it led to a stroke”.

Mr Berry says he cannot afford to challenge the ombudsman’s findings in court.

Laurence Fowler-Stevens, director of corporate services at The Abbeyfield Kent Society, said as far as his organisation was concerned the matter was closed.

He added: “The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) found no evidence of Mrs Berry’s death being the result of anything done or not done by the Abbeyfield Kent Society.

“Our own internal investigation reached the same conclusion. It is worth noting Mr Berry has not produced any medical evidence to support his assertions.

“The LGO decided we owed Mr Berry an apology for not maintaining records to the required standard, and we have done so. We felt the decision by the LGO was fair and balanced.”

The Care Quality Commission said it would be “inappropriate” for it to comment but its latest report on the home, which closed earlier this year, deemed it good overall but requiring improvement in terms of resident safety.

The report said: “The service was not consistently safe.” It said some medicines were not always appropriately recorded.