Care home out of special measures - but more improvement needed with 'shortfalls' identified
A Shropshire care home is no longer in special measures, after inspectors found that improvements have been made.
Lady Forester Residential and Day Care Centre in Broseley was placed into special measures in March following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission two months earlier.
During the January inspection the care home was judged to be ‘inadequate’ in two of the five key areas assessing if the service was well-led and safe – resulting in an overall ‘inadequate’ rating.
Inspectors returned in August to carry out a focused inspection assessing whether the service was well-led and safe.
The Church Street care home was found to have made improvements, with both key areas and the overall rating now ‘requiring improvement’.
The service provides residential support for 12 older people and also has an adjoining day care centre which can be accessed by people living at the home and by the wider community.
“At this inspection we found significant improvements had been made but these needed to be embedded into everyday practice,” found inspectors.
“We found the provider remained in breach of some of the regulations. Since our last inspection, the provider had made improvements in all areas of the service, including the governance of the home and these improvements were ongoing.
“Significant improvement was seen in the environmental issues we identified at our last inspection. Further time was needed to ensure the improvements and new systems were fully effective, embedded in all staffs’ practice and able to be sustained.”
The inspectors found that the ‘overall management’ of service users medicines had improved.
However, they found that some people’s medicines ‘were not managed safely’ and concluded that further improvement was required.
“We identified two instances where medicines had been incorrectly recorded as a homely medicine,” found inspectors. “A homely remedy is a medicine used to treat minor ailments.”
Inspectors also found that the home’s governance systems had improved but required further improvement.
“People’s risks associated with their care had been reviewed and guidance for staff was improved upon,” inspectors found.
“People’s care plans were more specific and person centred. This was an area of continued improvement.”
The CQC said the home continues to send monthly action plans and the provider had ‘demonstrated’ that improvements had been made.
The inspector added that despite the improvements that have been made there was ‘still shortfalls’ in service leadership.
“There was an increased oversight at the service by the provider and new nominated individual, who was at the home daily,” added inspectors.
“The management team were open and they recognised further improvements were required at the service. The provider had an ongoing improvement and action plan were in place.
“Staff understood how to protect people from harm and followed safe hygiene practices to prevent and control infection. People were supported by enough staff who had been safely recruited. The provider had systems in place to make sure lessons could be learnt from accidents, incidents and when things went wrong.”
