The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated St Gabriel's House – Apartments in Westgate-on-Sea, inadequate and placed it in special measures following an inspection in October.
St Gabriel's House - Apartments is a care home providing personal care to seven people with a learning disability or autistic people the time of the inspection. People's accommodation was on the first floor of the building and split into two flats including communal areas.
Following this inspection, the care home’s overall rating has dropped from good to inadequate and the service has been placed in special measures. The service was also rated inadequate for being safe and well-led. Effective, caring and responsive dropped from good to requires improvement.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s director for people with learning disabilities and autistic people, said:
“When we inspected St Gabriel's House – Apartments, we found a service where the standard of care had deteriorated since our last inspection. People’s safety and wellbeing needs weren’t always being met, and risks weren’t effectively managed.
“People's support plans didn’t set out their long-term aspirations or goals and there was no data about how people were progressing with their hobbies, interests or daily living achievements.
“Currently, we are considering what further action we may wish to take at St Gabriel's House – Apartments. In the meantime we will continue to monitor the service 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 provider had failed to ensure medicine checks were undertaken effectively to identify shortfalls, errors and omissions
- There were not enough permanent staff employed at the service
- The provider had failed to implement effective systems and processes to ensure people's support plans and risk assessments were reviewed and updated regularly
- The provider did not have enough staff with the appropriate skills to communicate effectively with people, as the agency staff did not have British Sign Language
- The provider had completed one quality audit, but no work had been undertaken to rectify any risks. Quality audits are an effective way to identify shortfalls and poor quality of risk assessments and support plans.