A residential care home in Wythenshawe has been slammed for being unsafe and potentially dangerous by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Southwold Nursing Home was rated as requiring improvement by the CQC, who found that practices led to patients being exposed to ‘potential risk of harm and neglect’.
The report did acknowledge that the home had improved since its last visit, when it was rated as inadequte, but claimed that progress had not been sufficient enough, leading enforcement action to be enacted.
“We found that people’s health care needs were not appropriately assessed therefore individual risk factors had not been fully considered, placing people at risk of avoidable harm,” the report claimed.
“People’s dignity was not always considered.
“People’s safety was being compromised in a number of areas, including unsafe moving and handling procedures, how well medicines were managed and administered, infection prevention and staff knowledge of essential care standards.
“Patients were not always protected against avoidable harm and quality assurance systems at the home failed to identify or resolve associated risk, therefore placing people at potential risk of harm and neglect.”
The report, which took place in July and August 2015, accepted that new management had taken over the home, with one member of staff claiming that there had been ‘positive changes’ since the new regime started in May that year.
The new manager acknowledged to the CQC that under the previous management there had been a lack of ‘leadership, quality, documentation, audits and care’.
However, the report still found evidence of obvious failings within the home.
“During the inspection we identified failings in a number of areas,” it read.
“These included person centred care, medicine management, premises safety, managing risks, staffing and governance.
“These issues had not been sufficiently identified or managed by the provider prior to our visit which showed that there was a lack of consistent quality assurance systems in place.”
Despite these flaws, the home avoided the lowest CQC rating in four of the five key areas, although it was labelled as inadequate in terms of the safety it provided patients.
The home was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing.
Image courtesy of Chalmers Butterfield, with thanks
