Staff threatened and punched at care home

STAFF were threatened and hurt by residents at a Leicester care home on a number of occasions – but no action was taken by the provider, a watchdog found.

Members of staff at Clarendon Beechlands care home, pictured, were threatened with strangulation, punched in the head and had nails dug into their skin, a report said.

On two occasions, staff had also been touched inappropriately.

In all, 11 incidents were identified by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) when they inspected the Clarendon Park service.

But no action had been taken by the home to support staff in dealing with incidents.

This placed other people living at the service, which cares for 18 residents with learning disabilities, autism, mental health conditions and younger adults, at risk of aggression, the healthcare watchdog said.

The CQC rated the home “inadequate” for safety and leadership, and “requires improvement” for effectiveness, caring and responsiveness. It is rated “inadequate” overall. The care provider for the home, Prime Life Ltd, said it was “extremely disappointed” with the findings in the report.

Support teams are now working with the home to make improvements, a spokesman added.

A number of other failings were discovered in the service.

There was a risk of harm to residents during emergencies as evacuation plans did not reflect their needs, the watchdog said.

Some people were identified as being potentially unwilling to leave the building in an emergency.

However, staff had no information as to what they should do if a person refused to leave.

The provider took swift action to amend the evacuation plans when the issue was raised with them by the inspectors, the report said.

Medicine management was also unsafe, the CQC said.

Staff did not have guidance on how to spot and manage symptoms of low blood sugar and there was no information on who should be monitoring blood glucose levels or how often, the report added, placing people at risk.

One person at the service had pain relief medicine, but their records did not say how long they should go between doses.

This could have resulted in staff administering the medicine unsafely, the CQC said.

Care plans had conflicting information, the report added.

One person was at risk of not returning home at a reasonable time.

One page of their care plan said the person had a curfew of 8pm, however another page described how the person did not have a curfew.

This made it difficult for staff to follow the missing person’s procedure as it was not clear in records whether the person should be home at a certain time or not.

There were not enough staff at the service to meet the needs of its residents, the report continued.

There were no domestic or catering staff, meaning support staff were required to cook and clean on top of looking after people.

There were also not enough staff trained in medicines, and not all of the night staff had up-to-date training in medicines.

On some nights, people could not receive their medicines after 8pm once the day staff had finished their shift. The provider’s staffing rotas showed this has occurred eight times in January alone.

Eight staff members had not completed or had expired training in fire safety, nine showed the same for first aid, and nine for moving and handling.

Some 13 staff members did not have training in learning disabilities.

People were also not well-protected from the risk of racial abuse, the CQC said.

One person had been racially abusive to another person on three separate occasions, the report detailed.

The person’s care plan and risk assessments had not been updated to include the potential threat of racial abuse towards others.

This meant there was a lack of suitable guidance to support staff to manage the incident should it occur again, inspectors ruled.

MIXED FEEDBACK

Families gave mixed feedback on the home, according to the report.

One relative was not satisfied with the overall care of their loved one. However, another relative spoke very positively of the support their relative received.

Residents’ feedback of living at the service was good.

One person told the CQC: “The best thing about here is there are no worries about anything.”

Another said: “I like it because I have got support behind me. I know that I am loved.”

Parts of the home were not clean, inspectors also found. Mould was discovered growing in the en-suite wet rooms in three bedrooms.

This put the residents in those rooms at risk of inhaling the spores.

Wooden handrails leading upstairs and around the upstairs landings had chipped paintwork and “ingrained” dirt, inspectors added.

Cleaning records for deep cleaning and for “high touch areas” were not always complete.

Maintenance tasks were not completed in the home at the time of the inspection.

One person’s toilet roll holder in their en-suite wet room was missing, leaving the fixing bracket attached to the wall.

This posed a skin tear risk if the person caught themself on this while using their wet room.

WHAT THE CARE HOME SAYS

Chief Operating Officer for Prime Life, Simon Van Herrewege, told the Mercury: “We were extremely disappointed by the outcome of this inspection, but must recognise some of the current failings identified within the home.

“Our support teams are now working closely with staff and management to attend to all issues identified around infection control and cleaning, staff training, record keeping and overall managerial oversight within the service.

“We have also started a programme of refurbishment to replace en-suite and bathing facilities, and other areas that let the home down.

“We look forward to CQC’s return visit to evidence these improvements, and that we are ‘back on the ball.’”