The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Elmhurst Care Home in Bradford, inadequate and placed the service into special measures to protect people, following an inspection in December.
Elmhurst Care Home provides care support to adults, some of whom are living with dementia. This was CQC’s first inspection of the home under their new management, Bronhaul Care Limited, and was carried out following information of concern highlighted to CQC from staff at the service.
Following this inspection, the overall rating for the service, as well as the areas of safe, well-led, effective, responsive and caring are rated as inadequate.
The service has been placed in special measures which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and it will be monitored to check sufficient improvements have been made. CQC also issued warning notices following the inspection to focus their attention on making significant improvements around safe care and treatment, and how they were managing the service.
Sheila Grant, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said:
“When we inspected Elmhurst, we found leaders had not implemented good processes and weren’t supporting staff, which led to people being placed at risk of unsafe care. We found a closed culture, poor morale and a clear divide between care staff and management which led to the breakdown of effective teamwork.
“Staff didn’t record important information about people’s support and wishes in their care plans. For example, despite some people being at risk of pressure ulcers, there were large gaps in their care plans meaning staff hadn’t repositioned them to prevent pressure damage which placed them at risk of further harm.
“When people moved between services, there was no continuity of care because managers didn’t work in collaboration with other services. On some occasions, leaders were obstructive when external professionals attended the home to assess people’s needs, and they had given them misleading or false information which could place people at risk of receiving inappropriate care.
“There were no meaningful activities available at the home to boost people’s wellbeing. Care decisions were made for people, rather than with them, which made them feel uninvolved and confused.
“We have told leaders where we expect to see rapid, and continued improvements and will continue to monitor the service closely to keep people safe during this time. We will return to check on their progress and won’t hesitate to use our regulatory powers further if people aren’t receiving the care they have a right to expect.”
Inspectors found:
- Leaders didn’t have the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively.
- Leaders didn’t always detect and control potential safety risks throughout the home.
- There weren’t enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff at the home.
- People weren’t supported by staff to manage their health and wellbeing.
- The environment wasn’t dementia friendly, with multiple bedroom doors being undistinguishable due to not having names, numbers or pictures on them.
- Personal emergency evacuation plans weren’t accurate and hadn’t been reviewed.
- People didn’t always have their medicines administered safely or at the right times.
- There was no system in place to record, manage, investigate and monitor complaints and concerns.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.