A Miles Plating Care Home has been rated as Inadequate by Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission after an unannounced inspection last year
Engage Care Services which provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.
It was supporting 71 people at the time of the inspection, including older people, those living with dementia and people with a physical disability.
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about poor personal care, communication issues with the support workers and medicines management.
Inspectors found that not all risks had been assessed. Guidance for support workers to manage risks and provide the required support was not always in place or was often brief and generic
Medicines were not well managed. Information about critical medicines and signs of a possible deterioration in health conditions was not recorded in people’s care plans.
There were ongoing concerns around supporting people with personal care, maintaining people’s dignity and providing appropriate meals for people.
There were communication barriers with a large proportion of the staff team, people struggled to understand some of the support workers and they in turn weren’t able to always understand the people they were supporting or their relatives.
The inspectors found that People’s privacy, dignity and independence were not always respected and promoted.
A person said, “When I am being washed, I am never covered, and left shivering sat on the toilet. It’s not a good feeling”
While a relative said. Name] is being washed while sat on the commode with very little clothing on, which does not protect her dignity or privacy.”
The language used by staff in people’s daily notes was not dignified and Staff did not always introduce themselves to people or their relatives when making a support visit.
One relative said, “The staff just turn up, without introducing themselves and often very late without any apology or explanation” and another said
“They (the staff) have never been introduced to mum or myself, they just turn up when it suits them. It does cause mum some anxiety, especially when she cannot understand them.”
Feedback from relatives and local authorities was that some care staff used people’s homes to heat their own meals and waited in people’s homes after the end of a care call for a lift to their next call.
One relative said, “Time is often taken up by the staff using my toilet and heating up their meals in my microwave 5 days out of 7. So, their visit time should be half an hour, but they only give my wife just 10 minutes of this time, the rest of the time is sorting themselves out with toileting and heating their lunch.”
Feedback from two local authorities was that staff did not always complete personal care properly, leaving people dirty and wearing dirty clothes at the end of their support visit.
A relative said
“They don’t change [Name’s] pads often enough, so her clothing gets wet because her pads haven’t been changed. They don’t wash [Name] properly and always put her dirty clothes back on her.
