Vulnerable elderly people were left with unwashed hair, uncut nails, and food-stained clothes at a Paisley care home.
Westerfield Care Home is on the brink of losing its licence after inspectors found "serious concerns" while visiting.
Owners Handsale Care Ltd have been given until May 6 to clean up the home after residents were found to have been left with poor hygiene, in unclean bedrooms, and staff were failing to wear the correct PPE.
The detailed report from inspectors now shows the full scale of the issues - which have been classed as ‘severe’, reports the Paisley Daily Express.
Inspectors raised concerns with management due to the appearance of residents due to the number of people within the home who “appeared not to have had their hair washed or brushed, with some having long nails and food-stained clothes”.
The report also said records within the home showed staff were not washing or bathing residents as regularly as they should have been.
In other hygiene issues, inspectors slammed the care home for not maintaining residents’ dignity after it emerged staff were using a “wholly unacceptable” practice when using incontinence pads.
The report reads: “...the service were using absorbent pads on all communal chairs to reduce the impact of poor continence management.
“This practice is wholly unacceptable as it has the potential to undermine individuals’ dignity.”
Staff were also found to be leaving soiled pads in the rooms of residents rather than disposing of them properly, leading to bad smells within the rooms - which inspectors also stated were a “risk to someone’s dignity”.
Another issue raised highlighted that staff were failing to turn people in their beds enough to prevent pressure sores.
The report adds: “The service had plans in place to support people to turn positions to reduce the risk of this.
“We saw that the time gaps between staff supporting someone to turn were, at times, considerably longer than the times specified on the charts.
“There was no evidence that the reasons for this were explored. This could have negative consequences for someone’s skin integrity.”
Issues relating to infection control were also raised, with the home being graded as ‘weak’ for it’s response during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Staff were fully trained and had adequate access to PPE at a number of points in the facility, however, inspectors noted that staff regularly were not carrying out the practice and on more than one occasion were spotted without the correct PPE.
The report stated that management were told to address this issue during a previous inspection in February 2021 and had failed to take steps to fix it.
The leadership and management in Westerfield was branded a “significant weakness” which the report states led to a number of the issues highlighted within the report.
It stated that while “some strengths were identified...these were outweighed by significant areas of weakness which affected people’s experiences and outcomes.”
Inspectors state: “There were a number of concerns raised during the inspection including people’s personal appearances, cleanliness of bedrooms, lack of activities, how accidents and incidents were followed up, recruitment practices.
“These are all issues which indicate day to day managerial oversight within the home has significant weakness. Many of the concerns raised in this inspection were raised within a letter of serious concern last February. While short term improvement was assessed as having taken place by the follow up inspection in March 2021, the findings of this inspection demonstrate that improvements were not sustained.”
The facility has been slapped with both an Improvement Notice and a Serious Letter of Concern following a surprise inspection last month.
Bosses at the company previously said the unprecedented two years of the Covid-19 pandemic had caused “unique stresses”, however, made no excuses for the failures.
A care director for Handsale Care Ltd said: “Unfortunately, following a recent inspection by the Care Inspectorate, areas requiring improvement have been identified and a notice of improvement has been issued.
“The safety of our residents is of paramount importance to us, but, on this occasion, we’ve failed to meet the high expectations that we set ourselves.
“We apologise for this to the residents and families of those in our care.
“The past two years have been an unprecedented period for the adult social care sector, and whilst we offer no excuses, we have been faced with unique stresses and an enormously challenging climate. We will be doing our utmost to swiftly and meaningfully address the shortfalls identified at the inspection.
“During this time, we will keep our residents safe and well as we look to rectify the issues as quickly as possible, working closely with the Care Inspectorate and our partners at Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership to ensure the relevant improvements are made swiftly and efficiently.”
Handsale Care Ltd did not want to comment further on the matter when contacted by the Express.
