The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Greenlands View in Birmingham, inadequate and placed it in special measures following an inspection in October.
This inspection was carried out to check whether improvements had been made since CQC issued a warning notice in June. It was also prompted due to concerns received about the quality of care being provided to people.
Greenlands View, run by Lifeways Community Care Limited, is a care home that provides personal care to people with learning disabilities and autistic people. At the time of inspection, four people were using this service.
Following this unannounced inspection, the care home’s overall rating has dropped from requires improvement to inadequate. The rating for being safe and well-led has also declined from requires improvement to inadequate. Caring and responsive were not rated during this inspection and remain rated as good. The effective domain was also not inspected and remains requires improvement.
The service is now in special measures which means it will be kept under review by CQC and re-inspected to check on the progress of improvements.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s director for people with a learning disability and autistic people, said:
“When we visited Greenlands View, it was unacceptable to find that the necessary improvements hadn’t been made since our last inspection, and the standard of care being provided continued to put people at serious risk of harm.
“During our last inspection, we raised concerns about care plans not being followed. Yet at this inspection, staff continued not to follow these, as well as not carrying out risk assessments, which resulted in someone being left unsupervised, which caused an avoidable injury.
“Our inspection team found repeated environmental concerns that put people at serious risk of harm, including them having access to harmful substances and cleaning products that should have been locked away. This is unacceptable. The provider did take urgent action to address some of the concerns raised during the inspection.
“We found that the home was struggling with staffing issues. Relatives told us that while there was enough staff to support people, many had left and only a few knew people well. However, the provider was taking steps to address these issues and regular agency staff were hired to give people consistency.
“As the service has been rated inadequate and placed in special measures, we will continue to monitor it closely to ensure people are safe. If we are not assured people are receiving safe care, we will not hesitate to take further action.”
Inspectors found:
- The system in place for monitoring and learning from accidents had not been implemented effectively leaving people at risk of avoidable harm
- Incidents and accidents were not consistently reported, recorded or acted on to minimise risk of harm and reoccurrence
- The provider was reliant on agency staff to provide a safe level of staff to meet people’s needs. The provider continued to face challenges relating to staff recruitment and retention but was working to address these issues
- People were not protected from hazards around their home. A person’s window had a blind with a looped chain, this hazard had not been risk assessed
- The environment was unclean, there were broken kitchen floor tiles, food items under the cushions and a shower stool with dried faeces on the seat.