A care home has been told it needs to improve after inspectors found breaches in regulations had put people 'at risk of harm'. Stable Steps Care Centre, in Cale Green, Stockport, has been providing personal and dementia care for up to 50 people since last year and says it ‘always strives to deliver the highest standards’ for its residents.
The Adswood Lane West service was registered in March 2021 and first inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in June this year. A new report notes that residents were treated with dignity and respect, while officials also observed ‘caring interactions’ between carers and residents.
People ‘generally spoke positively’ about staff. But there were also a number of shortcomings that were said to put people ‘at risk of harm’, resulting in the centre being rated as ‘requires improvement’ overall and in four of the five assessment categories.
Bosses were said to be ‘very responsive to feedback and keen to improve the service’ - taking ‘immediate action to address any shortfalls identified’. However, there were several areas of concern, including five breaches of care regulations, included in the watchdog’s report.
“People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests,” the report states. “The policies and systems in the service had not been embedded to support good practice.”
Inspectors’ concerns included that ‘risk and safety was not always robustly managed’. While residents had individual risk assessments, officials found ‘there was not a consistent approach to the assessment and management of risk’.
“People had different types and quality of risk assessment in place, which did not always cover all areas of potential risk for that person,” the report adds. The management team were said to ‘recognise there were still areas for improvement’ and offered assurances that specific shortfalls raised by the inspection team ‘would be addressed’.
However the report notes that ‘systems had not been established to assess, monitor and mitigate risks to the health, safety and welfare of people using the service’. “This placed people at risk of harm,” it adds.
Another safety concern was around medicines. People who needed their medicines to be modified due to swallowing difficulties - or covertly hidden in food or drink - did not have assessments and detailed care plans in their records in line with the home’s policies.
Inspectors could not be certain these medicines were being safely administered. And while the manager ‘took immediate action to address these shortfalls’, the report notes that this was a further breach of regulations and ‘placed people at risk of harm’.
Officials also found that care plans did not always contain enough detail on how people wanted to be supported or their likes and dislikes.“We observed a number of occasions where people were not having their care met in a person centred way,” the report adds.
“For example, with regard to promotion of choice and responses to requests for help. People were not receiving care that was consistently person centred and met their needs and preferences.”
This placed people at risk of harm and breached regulations. And inspectors were also not satisfied that systems were ‘robust enough’ to demonstrate that staff had been safely recruited - again placing people at risk of harm and a breach of regulations.
A spokesperson for Stable Steps said the safety and wellbeing of residents was the centre's priority.
"We have therefore welcomed our first inspection from Care Quality Commission," they added. "The home took immediate action at the time of the inspection to resolve any issues highlighted by the inspectors.
"An improvement action plan has been implemented and the home will continue to work closely with Care Quality Commission and the local authority to ensure all necessary improvements have been made." Following the inspection, the CQC has asked the home to send a report detailing the action it is going to take to address shortcomings where regulations were not being met.
The watchdog will check that the action is taken at a future visit.
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