The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Springfield Lodge Care Home in West Rainton, County Durham, inadequate and placed the service into special measures to protect people, following an inspection on 12 November.
Springfield Lodge Care Home, ran by Ascot Care North East Limited, is a care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 40 older people, some of whom have physical disabilities or dementia.
The inspection was undertaken to follow up on concerns regarding medicines management and unsafe care that were raised at a previous inspection.
Following this inspection, the overall rating for the service, as well as the areas of safe and well-led have gone down from requires improvement to inadequate. The area of caring wasn’t inspected so retains its previous rating of good, and the areas of effective and responsive were rated requires improvement again.
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 a warning notice following the inspection to focus the attention of leaders on making significant improvements around how they were managing the service.
Victoria Marsden, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said:
“When we visited Springfield Lodge, it was disappointing to see a deterioration in the quality of care being provided to people. Action plans to address previous concerns hadn’t led to improvements which meant people remained at risk of ongoing harm.
“Leaders continued to manage medicines ineffectively. Some people weren’t given medication as prescribed by their GP and some medications being out of date or unavailable which placed people at risk of ineffective treatment or harm.
“Leaders also didn’t help staff to support people with specific care needs, who didn’t always receive appropriate care. For example, one person’s care records contained conflicting information over the support they needed with an inhaler to aid their breathing. Another person required daily monitoring of their skin integrity to prevent skin damage, but this wasn’t being recorded as completed.
“However, leaders were aware that staff morale was variable, with some staff feeling unsupported and overworked, and were taking steps to try and address this.
“It was also positive to see kind and caring interactions during our inspection, and people appeared to be happy and relaxed around staff.
“We have told leaders where we expect to see rapid improvements and will continue to monitor the home 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:
- Care records weren’t cohesive or regularly reviewed, and some contained contradictory information and guidance.
- Not all staff had completed required training, including training to support people with a learning disability.
- Staff gave mixed feedback on whether the service had safe and effective staffing.
- People weren’t always involved in assessing or reviewing their support needs and decisions.
- Staff didn’t always feel included in how the service was run.
- Ineffective management processes didn’t meet expected standards which impacted on the overall support people received.
However:
- People spoke positively about the range of activities available at the service.
- Effective infection prevention and control systems were in place.
- Staff worked with a range of external professionals to monitor and improve people’s health and wellbeing.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.