Amber Banks Care Home, Blackpool, rated Inadequate by the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has put Amber Banks Care Home, Blackpool, Lancashire into special measures to protect people using this service, after rating the service Inadequate following an inspection in May this year.

Amber Banks provides care and support for a maximum of 46 older people who may live with a physical disability. At the time of our inspection there were 29 people living at the home.

We inspected this service on 5 and 9 May 2016.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all adult social care services are given a rating to help people choose care. We ask five questions, are services; safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Overall, Amber Banks Care Home has been rated as Inadequate.

The full report from the inspection can be found here on our website: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-270259578.

Our most recent report identified a number of areas which we found very concerning including:

• A registered manager was not in place. The previous registered manager left two years ago and there have been seven managers in post since then. The new manager, who started in December 2015, told us they had sent an application to register with CQC in February 2016. However, our systems show we have not received this and the provider had no evidence to demonstrate the new manager had applied to register.
• We reviewed staffing levels and skill mixes and found these were insufficient to meet people's requirements. We observed there were not enough staff to meet people's needs with a timely approach. Staff added there were not enough staff to ensure people received safe care and treatment.
• The management team had not continuously followed safe recruitment processes to ensure suitable staff were employed. They failed to check people's full employment histories, criminal records and references at all times.
• We saw multiple concerns with people's environmental safety. We identified problems with health and safety, fire and infection control. The management team did not have effective risk assessment processes to protect individuals from potential hazards. The provider failed to have clear oversight of environmental safety and had not maintained living conditions that promoted people's welfare and security.
• We observed the provider failed to ensure people were protected from the unsafe management of their medicines.

Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the North, said:

“People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care.

“The care provided to people using services at Amber Banks Care Home Limited fell a very long way short in providing the level of care that people should expect.

“We were very concerned with environmental risks at the home posing a real risk to the safety of people using this service. The provider had no processes in place to monitor medication, infection control or care planning.

“Our first instinct is to make sure the service improves, but we must take action to protect people when we are worried about their safety.

“The service will be kept under review and, we will not hesitate to take enforcement action should the service deteriorate further.”

Ends

For further information please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966. Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters.

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