Whitstable House

Updated 11 November 2024

Date of assessment: 20 November 2024 to 5 December 2024. We completed this assessment due to concerns raised about risk management, staffing, management of the service and medicine management. We found there to be significant shortfalls, with 6 breaches of regulation relating safe care, governance of the service, staffing, gaining consent, safeguarding people and maintaining people’s dignity. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded. The management and oversight of the service was poor, there was a closed culture within the service. Staff did not report incidents and when staff had raised concerns these were not acted upon. There were systems in place to monitor the service, but these had been ineffective, shortfalls had either not been identified or acted upon. People had been placed at risk as incidents had not been reported, investigated, or lessons learnt. Medicines management was poor, people did not receive their medicines as prescribed, and this impacted their wellbeing. Staff did not always have the skills to support people safely. Staff did not follow best practice guidance when assessing people’s capacity to consent and did not always respect people’s decisions.

Updated 11 November 2024

People told us they did not feel safe living at the service. People described incidents where staff had placed them at risk or caused injury, and they had to report these incidents as staff had not. People did not feel safe in their room, they described how other people had continually come into their rooms when they had not wanted them to. People told us they had to wait for long periods for care and this had upset them. Some people told us their wishes had not been respected and one person’s wishes had been ignored and bedrails had been put in place. Other people were being restricted without robust assessment of their capacity to make decisions. People described how not receiving their medicines at the time they should had affected their ability to be independent and placed them at higher risk of falls. People told us they were not always given choices of food and had to ask for something different, which we observed during our assessment. There were no effective systems in place to give people the opportunity to give feedback on their experience of living at the service. People and relatives told us they did not feel listened to and when they had raised complaints these had not been fully investigated.