Special measures care home still “inadequate”

Criticisms of Parklands Care Home by the Care Quality Commission included poorly-presented, unidentifiable food which risked residents’ nutrition.

The home was criticised after an August inspection by the care industry watchdog.

Its owner said then that staff were working to meet and exceed legal standards — but a further, unannounced visits in January and February found little improvement.

The 52-bed home, on Park Street in Wombwell, caters for for adults with dementia and mental health needs.

Inspectors found several breaches of the Health and Social Care Act last year.

Summing up their most recent inspection in a report published this week, they said: “We found sufficient improvements had not been made to meet regulations.”

Parklands was rated “inadequate” in terms of safety, responsiveness to residents’ needs and leadership.

The watchdog said it “required improvement” in the effectiveness and care of its services.

The home had no registered manager when the CQC visited earlier this year.

Relatives told inspectors that they did not feel as though residents were safe, following a number of harm-causing incidents there.

Systems to manage risk to residents “were not always effective in practice”, inspectors said, while medicine management still “required improvement”.

Relatives also gave “mixed responses” when asked about care, with concerns raised about cleanliness.

Residents’ care records did not always reflect their current needs and staff did not always respond in a timely way, inspectors found.

The report added: “There continued to be inconsistency where care plans and risk assessments did not fully reflect a person’s needs — concerns we had raised at previous inspections.”

The watchdog criticised meals and mealtimes at the home — presentation was “not appealing”, while diners “would not have been able to identify individual food by taste”, inspectors said.

This could lead to risks with regards to resident’s nutritional needs, they added.

Last year, the home was criticised for inadequate staff training.

Inspectors repeated this concern, saying: “All training was not up-to-date, or effective in practice, in particular, fire training.”

Staffing levels had improved since the home’s last inspection, but recruitment processes still failed to meet legal requirements.

Staff supervision was also lacking, failing to meet the home’s own policies and procedures.

Inspectors also criticised “inconsistent management” of the service.

Parklands will remain under review, with the chance of enforcement action in the next six months, the report concluded.

Debbie Westhead, CQC’s deputy chief inspector for adult care, said: “People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and well-led high quality care.

“We found the care provided at Parklands Care Home has again fallen short of the standards we expect services to provide.”

She added: “We first rated Parklands Care Home as inadequate in October 2016 and told them where they must improve.

“Following their most recent inspections in January and February of this year, we have again rated them as inadequate.

“CQC are now considering their enforcement options which will be reported on in due course.”

A spokesman for the home said: “The care staff and management have been working with their local authority commissioners since November to maintain a full nursing and residential care service through the winter to contribute to relieving the pressure on NHS acute services.

“The national issues of recruiting specialist qualified nurses have not helped despite the support and encouragement we have received from our commissioners.

“In the light of the latest CQC report based on its new way of inspecting services we will be reviewing and entering into urgent discussions with all those concerned on how best we can meet the needs of those in our care.”