In January and February this year, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) took action to prevent a Lancashire nursing home from operating to ensure the safety and welfare of the residents.
CQC’s decision means that the provider, Pilling Care Homes Limited, cannot provide care services at Pilling Care Home in Preston, Lancashire.
This action follows CQC inspections in March and April last year which rated the service requires improvement overall, with an inadequate rating in responsive but good in caring, and a return visit by inspectors in January and February this year to check whether improvements had been made – rating the home inadequate overall. Inspectors observed continued concerns regarding, how the home managed risks to people’s health and safety, a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, care planning and adapting to people’s changing care needs and ineffective quality monitoring.
The inspections this year identified further concerns that people in the home were not receiving adequate care and treatment, as inspectors saw that there was not enough skilled, qualified and experienced members of staff to ensure people’s needs were being met in a timely manner. Medicine management was poor, inspectors saw omissions in people’s medicine administration records, it was unclear whether people were receiving their medicines as prescribed. Inspectors noted the home was malodorous and the environment was observed to be dirty with some equipment being faulty which posed an avoidable risk, and recruitment procedures were not robust meaning some staff had not been through proper checks to ensure their suitability to care for vulnerable people. The provider was unable to evidence that suitable training had been provided to staff, and that appraisals and supervision of staff was taking place to help develop their skills. There were no effective systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of care people received, and little effort had been made to address the findings of the previous inspection in April last year.
A full report detailing the findings of the inspection has been published on this website.
Since the inspection and the enforcement action taken in April this year, all the people who had been living in Pilling Care Home have moved to alternative accommodation and the home is currently empty.
Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at CQC, said:
“Our priority is always to ensure the safety and welfare of people receiving services at all times and it is unacceptable that Pilling Care Homes Limited had not taken proper steps to ensure residents safety or to provide people living at the home with care that meets their needs.
"Last year we found this service to be failing their residents and were given an opportunity to improve, however during inspections this year we saw the provider had failed to meet the required standards and had allowed the service to deteriorate further. People were not being provided the care and treatment they deserve, therefore we were left no option but to take action and cancel its registration.
“Both before, and during the inspections, we have been working closely with Lancashire County Council who has overseen the safe relocation of residents to alternative homes.”
Ends
For further information please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Mark Humphreys on 0191 233 3519 / 07881 656012.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here.
Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.
Find out more
Read our reports on Pilling Care Home.