Vulnerable people ‘were placed at risk’
Care home placed into ‘special measures’ by inspectors
VULNERABLE people “were placed at risk” at a Widnes care home described as ‘inadequate’ by inspectors.
A warning notice was served against Woodcrofts Residential Home in Widnes, which has now been placed into “special measures” by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors.
The home was caring for 17 people with mental health needs at the time of the inspection in December.
The report, published in March, declared that the “service was not safe”, “not always effective”, “not well-led”, and also that: “Medicines were not being managed safely.”
In the report the CQC inspector listed the various issues found at the home, including: “A lack of systems in place to safeguard people from the risk of abuse”; “A lack of undertaking risk assessments”; “Out of date documentation”; “A lack of effective medicines management”; “A lack of effective management of infection prevention control” and “A lack of up to date staff training”.
In the report, the inspector wrote that: “People were placed at risk from a lack of effective risk management systems. We found gaps in care plans, risk assessments and the management of infection control.”
The inspector continued: “We could not see any systems in place to monitor and record safeguarding concerns. The provider had not delivered recent training in essential areas such as medicines and infection and prevention control.”
“A lack of effective governance systems meant people were placed at risk of avoidable harm and improvements were not being made where required. The provider did not complete audits, meaning opportunities to improve care were missed.”
The CQC inspector added: “There was no system for recording and monitoring incidents, meaning we were not sure whether risks and concerns were identified and acted upon. We were unsure whether the provider understood their statutory responsibilities to report issues to relevant others.”
The last report on this service in July 2019 found it to be “good”, but that the CQC had since “received concerns” in relation to the home, which has capacity for 19 people.
The CQC has now placed the home into “special measures”.
The report explains: “This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within six months to check for significant improvements.
“If the provider has not made enough improvement within this time frame [and] there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures.
“This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.”
The inspector added: “We found no evidence that people had been harmed, however systems were not in place to assess, monitor and manage risks to people’s health and well-being; including those related to the environment. This placed people at risk of avoidable harm.”
Woodcrofts Residential Home was approached for comment.