@Palerider , I’m so sorry about your experiences with the care home. No one wants to point the finger, but this does look like theft, perpetrators unknown. When my aunt was discharged from hospital to a care home for assessment, the home told me what she had arrived with, or rather hadn’t. Her spectacles (all three pairs of them) hadn’t arrived with her, indeed they didn’t know she wore spec! Enquiries to the hospital proved fruitless.
My aunt died during the assessment period, so I retrieved her possessions from the home. This was a bit of a torturous process because they were closed because of COVID, so all her possessions were placed in a bag at the door. It was only when I checked her handbag later that I realised £120 in cash was missing. I’d forgotten she had it and I’m sure she had, too. I asked the home if they’d put it in the safe and they denied all knowledge of it. This money was in a secure back pocket of a capacious bag. No one could have accidentally stumbled on it, it would have required a thorough search of the bag. So this wasn’t opportunistic. Someone stole this money and I have no idea if it was someone in the hospital or the care home. I will never know and there’s nothing I can do.
There are a number of questions surrounding her death at the care home that don’t add up, but I’m not proposing to pursue things because what would be the point? But like you, I feel a bit sickened that we have to place our trust in caring for our loved ones with people in whom that trust is utterly misplaced.
I do hope you get some answers with your mum's treasured jewellery.