Following an inspection in December, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Baxter Education Centre Northwest, inadequate overall and placed it in special measures, after finding significant issues regarding patient safety.
Following this inspection, CQC rated the service inadequate overall, as well as for being safe and well-led. It is rated requires improvement for being effective and responsive, and good for being caring.
Due to the issues found, the service was issued two warning notices relating to the safe care and treatment of patients and the governance of the service. These require the service to make immediate improvements.
The service is run by Baxter Healthcare Limited and is a residential training facility where staff teach NHS patients how to manage their own peritoneal dialysis, which is a treatment for kidney failure.
Karen Knapton, CQC’s head of hospital inspection, said:
“When we inspected Baxter Education Centre Northwest, we had serious concerns about patients not receiving the safe care and treatment they should be able to expect. The governance of the service concerned us; leaders didn’t always have the skills and abilities to run the organisation well. Also, there was a lack of effective systems and processes in place to identify and mitigate risks to people using the service.
“We were not assured that incidents were being reported or that internal investigations were being carried out to identify areas for learning. Leaders need to ensure staff learn from incidents to prevent them from happening again. Additionally, the service wasn’t gaining people’s consent for treatment and complaints processes weren’t adequate and must be improved.
“The service didn’t always use systems and processes to safely record and store medicines and it was concerning that dialysis fluid wasn’t always stored at the right temperature, which could have an impact on its effectiveness.
“People with specialist nutrition and hydration needs were not monitored by staff which could put them at serious risk. In addition, people’s allergies, dietary requirements, next of kin and their resuscitation status details weren’t always recorded which could also put them at risk. Staff didn’t have the required level of safeguarding training and the service’s safeguarding policy wasn’t fit for purpose. This meant staff might not be able to recognise, and report patients if they are at risk of abuse.
“However, staff told us they felt supported, and we saw they were discreet and responsive when caring for patients. The service had picture guides available for patients who could not read, or whose first language was not English, and staff took time to interact with people and those close to them in a respectful and considerate way.
“Due to significant concerns found, we issued two warning notices to Baxter Education Centre Northwest to make sure immediate improvements are made to ensure patients are safe. We will continue to monitor the service closely and will return to check on progress.”
Inspectors found:
- Leaders did not always have the skills and abilities to run the service well
- Leaders did not operate effective governance systems and processes to identify, assess and mitigate risks to the health, safety and welfare of people
- Safety was not given sufficient priority, making people who used the service at risk of potential harm and the service did not always meet people’s needs
- Managers did not monitor the effectiveness of the service and make sure staff were competent
- The service did not have robust systems in place to assess the risk of, prevent, detect and control the spread of infections
- The service must ensure care and treatment is provided with the consent of the relevant person.
However:
- Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients
- Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness and respected their privacy and dignity
- People did not have to wait too long for treatment.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on our website.
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