‘Unsafe’ care home must improve or it will be closed down
INSPECTORS MAKE ANOTHER UNANNOUNCED VISIT
AN “unsafe” Belper care home has failed to turn itself around after being placed in special measures earlier this year.
Inspectors found the Belper Views Residential Home had not made significant improvements since it was ranked “inadequate” in April.
At the time they found a bottle of urine had been left by the side of a resident’s bed for a whole day – among a catalogue of other errors.
But when the Care Quality Commission (CQC) returned for an unannounced visit in July it said most problems had not been fixed.
The care home watchdog said if “significant improvements” are not made within the next six months it will begin the process of shutting the home down.
Alan Kilkenny, who runs the home in Holbrook Road, said he believed the home was on track to impress inspectors on their next visit.
He also said he had brought in a full-time consultant to bring the home up to scratch.
He said: “Care has changed in the last 15 to 20 years and we have lived in a little bit of a bubble.
“We thought we were giving the best of care but we have not been keeping up with the compliances.
“We weren’t a bad home, we didn’t give bad care. But we were not as compliant as we should have been.”
The CQC ranks care homes on five key areas – safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness, and leadership. In its April report, the Belper Views Residential Home was ranked as follows:
Safety – inadequate Effectiveness – inadequate Care – requires improvement Responsiveness – requires improvement
Leadership – inadequate
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In the latest report it had only improved its rating for “effectiveness”, which went up one ranking from “inadequate” to “requires improvement”. Inadequate is the lowest-possible rating.
Inspectors did praise several aspects of the care home. They said residents enjoyed Alan Kilkenny their meals, the home was “warm and comfortable”, residents enjoyed the outdoor space and staff had caring relationships with their clients.
One inspector saw a member of staff brushing a resident’s hair in a way that showed she cared about the client. The report also pointed out that the kitchen had a five-star food hygiene rating from the Food Standards Agency.
However, overall, inspectors said residents were unsafe and at risk of avoidable harm. They said the effectiveness of care and treatment was not always good.
They said residents did not always feel well supported or that they were treated with dignity. There were also shortfalls in the home’s leadership, and people’s needs were not always met.
The CQC has identified six regulations which were not being met by the home. It has asked for a report on how these issues will be fixed and they will be checked on the next unannounced visit.
If the home does not make significant improvements within six months then the CQC will begin the process of shutting it down.
The report says: “If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe 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 of the registration.”
We thought we were giving the best of care but we have not been keeping up with the compliances.