Management of medicine at care home criticised by inspectors
A RUNCORN care home has been told to improve after an inspection found medicines not being safely managed and risks not being assessed.
Norton Lodge received a visit from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in March with the resulting report published on June 9.
The CQC graded the home as “requires improvement” for how “safe” and “well-led” it was, and “good” for how “effective”, “caring” and “responsive” it was.
An inspection report criticised the management of medicines, which were “not always managed safely”, adding that “not all risks were safely assessed and mitigated to maintain people’s safety”.
It noted, however, that despite an “increased risk”, the inspector “found no evidence that people had been harmed”.
Read More Search Council Notices in your area The CQC added that records relating to risks were not always complete or accurate, systems did not always identify fire safety risks, and audits were not always effective as they failed to identify issues with fire safety, risk assessments and medicines management.
There were several areas of praise.
These included “good infection control”, safeguarding training, enough staff, and “relatives told us that staff were competent and had the necessary skills to perform their roles safely”.
The report added Norton Lodge had a new registered manager who had identified aspects of its work to enhance, started to make those changes and “encouraged a culture of learning from incidents”.
Norton Lodge was graded “requires improvement” overall.
According to the CQC report, the home provides care for up to 32 clients over two floors, with 29 staying on site at the time of the inspection.
Norton Lodge has been told to produce an action plan.
The report said: “We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety.
“We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress.
“We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.”