A Suffolk retirement home has been placed in special measures by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which took the action to ‘protect people’.
The independent regulator has taken the action against The Limes Retirement Home in Mellis, near Eye, after its inspectors rated the Earlsford Road site inadequate following an inspection in May and July last year.
The inspection was said to have been prompted by concerns people shared with the CQC about people’s safety and the quality of care in the home which caters for up to 26 people and specialises in those with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
The Limes Retirement Home in Mellis, near Eye, has been placed in special measures by the CQC. Picture: Google Maps
Inspectors found eight breaches of the legal regulations in relation to safety, the premises, safeguarding, staffing numbers, recruitment, training and support, person centred care, consent, management and governance.
The home’s overall rating dropped from good to inadequate, so had the ratings for its safe, effective, caring and responsive categories. The home’s rating for being well-led also dropped from good to requires improvement.
Hazel Roberts, the CQC’s deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: “We were deeply concerned to find the needs of people living with dementia were not understood, putting their safety and wellbeing at serious risk.
“Leaders had very little oversight of people’s care and had failed to respond when things went wrong.
“People in the home told inspectors they did not feel safe and described other people coming into their room, being physically aggressive or exposing themselves.
“It was concerning that staff had not been trained to support people with dementia or mental health needs whose behaviours caused risks to themselves or others, and we found incidents of assaults, exposure, urinating and unwanted physical contact between people living at the home.”
The deputy director said staff had recorded people falling 52 times in the six weeks before the inspection, but inspectors found more falls which had not been recorded and found the registered manager did not know about them.
She added: “As a result, they had taken no action to investigate these incidents or protect people in future and had not reported them to the local authority or CQC for external oversight. During this inspection we raised an organisational safeguarding alert to the local authority.
“While many staff were well-intentioned, leaders did not make sure they had the training to care for people with dementia. There also were not enough staff to meet people’s needs, meaning people were often left alone. During our inspection we saw people who were visibly distressed, anxious, and left in unsafe ways with staff unavailable to support them.
“The service also had not always fully assessed people’s needs to make sure the home could meet them. One person’s wheelchair did not fit through the doorways or corridors, meaning they were not able to take a bath or shower, impacting their dignity and wellbeing.
“We have imposed urgent conditions on the home’s registration to protect people and focus leaders’ attention on making immediate improvements. We will continue to monitor the home, and will not hesitate to take further action if we’re not assured people are being cared for safely.”
During the inspection it was found that frail and immobile people were living in small rooms with uneven floors, the kitchen was not clean, the service only had one bathroom and one wet room for up to 26 people, staff had not received fire evacuation training, residents were left alone for long periods and staff did not always ensure people received their medications safely or as prescribed.
The report said the regulator ‘took urgent enforcement action to ensure people’s safety and referred concerns to multiple external stakeholders to support the service’.
The CQC has imposed conditions on the home to focus its attention on the areas where significant and immediate improvements are needed.
These conditions now prevent the home from admitting new residents, require leaders to take immediate action to improve people’s safety and require the home to send monthly reports to the CQC detailing its progress.