Beacon Edge Care Home, a residential care home in Penrith, Cumbria has been placed in special measures after the CQC rated them as Inadequate following an unannounced inspection in November and December.
At the time of the inspection Beacon Edge Care Home was registered to provide residential and care for up to 33 people who live with a dementia.
This service was previously inspected in February 2015 and was rated as Good.
The full report from the inspection can be found here on our website.
Rosalind Sanderson, North East and Coast Head of Adult Social Care Inspection for CQC said:
“People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, responsive and high quality care. We found that the care provided at Beacon Edge Care Home fell a long way short of what we expect services to provide.
“There were not always enough staff available to meet the needs of people who used this service. And although we observed friendly interactions between staff and residents, this approach was not always consistent particularly when supporting people with eating and drinking or where people had limited verbal communication skills.
“We were concerned that people weren’t being supported whilst eating and drinking, and specialist dietary requirements were poorly managed.
“Much of the support provided by staff was 'task orientated' rather than centred on people's individual preferences and staff did not always know what had been written in care plans and daily notes.
“We are working with partners including Cumbria County Council and Cumbria CCG to ensure the safety of people using this service.”
Beacon Edge Care Home did not have effective systems in place to monitor the care being delivered to people. Inspectors also found medicines management was poor and people were at risk of not receiving their medicines as prescribed.
Some of the other findings included:
- Activities were limited to communal areas which meant that people being looked after in bed were at risk of social isolation.
- There was little evidence to show that activities and the environment took the needs of people living with dementia into account.
- The service did not have an effective system in place to help monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service.
- There were gaps in the staff training programme and in the ways in which they received supervision and support, including the monitoring of their work practices.
Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if CQC have not taken immediate action to propose cancelling the provider's registration, they will be inspected again within six months. The expectation is that locations providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe.
Any regulatory decision that CQC takes is open to challenge by a registered person through a variety of internal and external appeal processes.
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For further information, please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Kerri James by email at kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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