Savile House, a residential care home in Halifax, West Yorkshire has again been rated as Inadequate by CQC, following an unannounced inspection in April.
Savile House provides personal care for older people, some of who may be living with a dementia. At the time of the inspection 18 people were using this service.
This service was previously inspected in November 2016 and rated as Inadequate after CQC inspectors found eight breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
The full report from the inspection can be found here on our website.
Debbie Westhead, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector for Adult Social Care, said:
“People are entitled to services which provide safe, caring and high quality care. We found that the care provided at Savile House once again fell short of what we expect services to provide."
“We found eight breaches in regulation at our previous inspection and disappointingly found limited progress has been made in addressing these despite us telling Savile House where they must improve."
“There were not enough staff to meet people’s needs, especially at night. On at least three occasions during this visit, our inspectors had to go and find staff to assist people."
“It was also very concerning that the abilities of staff were not checked before they were allowed to work unsupervised in the home. This put people at real risk of receiving unsafe or inappropriate care."
“We found a lack of consistent and effective management which coupled with ineffective systems for checking quality meant issues were not identified or resolved."
“We are working with local partners including Calderdale Council to ensure the safety of people using this service.”
Other findings from the inspection included:
- Staff recruitment checks were not always completed before new staff started work. A reference for one new staff member was dated three days after they had started employment.
- There was a lack of consistency in the way medicines were managed which meant inspectors could not be assured people were receiving their medicines as prescribed or when they needed them.
- Risks were not well managed. Incident reports showed one person's behaviour posed risks to other people, but there was no plan in place to show how these risks were being managed to protect them.
- People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible.
- Observations and discussions with people and staff showed people's privacy, dignity and rights were not always respected or upheld.
CQC are now taking enforcement action against the provider, Chestnut Care Limited. This is currently subject to legal proceedings and CQC are unable to report on these proceedings until they have concluded.
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 Engagement Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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