Blackpool care home told to make improvements by CQC watchdog - this is what they said

A report issued this week shows that Elmsdene Care Home in Dean Street is rated as Requires Improvements with three out of five key metrics not being met (well led, effective and safe). It is rated as Good for ‘caring’ and ‘responsive’.

Inspectors carried out their assessment of the service in November. Previously, the service was in breach of the legal regulations regarding safe care and treatment, safeguarding, staff suitability and governance. At this assessment, three breaches had been met, with continued breaches in safe care and treatment and governance. There was a new breach in consent.

Issues

A CQC report states: “Improvements were required to monitor health outcomes for people and to ensure consent for care was obtained correctly.” It went on to say: “Aspects of governance required strengthening; processes to analyse and learn lessons needed to be embedded. More was needed to make sure the service was compliant with legal duties.”

Positives

Many positives were also recognised. The report stated:

- People were involved in assessments of their needs.

- People had enough to eat and drink to stay healthy.

- People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity and treated them as individuals and supported their preferences.

- People had choice in their care and were encouraged to maintain relationships with family and friends.

- People were mostly involved in decisions about their care.

- People knew how to give feedback and were confident the service took it seriously and acted on it. The service was easy to access.

The report also states: “Staff were supported to give feedback and were treated equally, free from bullying or harassment” and “managers worked with the local community to deliver the best possible care and were receptive to new ideas.”

People spoke highly about the service and the staff and relatices said the home was clean, comfortable and there was a wide choice of healthy food available.

Sheridan Care Ltd

This is what the management said: “I would like to respond by saying previously under the old Manager the service was under special requirements and that since we have had a change of management, there has been a huge improvement since the last one and almost everything on the report have been addressed and we are continuously working to improve the care standards in order to provide the best care for the residents.

“We have received 5-star reviews on the website from family members on how the care and support to their family members has been met since new management have been in place and positive feedback was given by all professionals supporting the residents in the home.

“On the day of the inspection, we did have a new manager in place, but she was still learning about the new systems and a lot of the information was not embedded. The Director and the Regional Manager are hands on with supporting the staff team and families and are working closely with the local authority and will continue to do so. The staff are trained to the highest standard to deliver person centred care and are create a happy and relaxed home environment for the residents. We have now recruited a very well experienced Manager who will be joining the team and will be continued to be supported by the Director and Regional Manager.

“I would like to add that consent is sought before each care task is started and for those that are unable to consent MCA’s and Best interest meetings were completed, but only some of this was evidenced on the day of inspection. We will now be looking at how we can be more proactive around evidenced based information and embedding this into the staff team.”