CQC inspectors place Bloomfield Court and 5,6 Ivy Mews into special measures

England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has placed Bloomfield Court and 5,6 Ivy Mews at Bloomfield Road, London into special measures following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

Bloomfield Court and 5,6 Ivy Mews was inspected in September 2015 a full report of this inspection has been published on the CQC website today: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-260950858

A specialist team of inspectors rated the service as Inadequate for being safe, effective, responsive to people’s needs and well-led, and Requires Improvement for being caring.

The service has been given an overall rating of Inadequate and has been placed into special measures .

Jane Ray, Head of Hospital Inspection (Mental Health) for London, said:

"It is essential that Bloomfield Court takes action to address the concerns we identified at this inspection. This is a service for people with learning disabilities who may not be able to raise issues for themselves, which makes them particularly vulnerable. This highlights why it is important for the provider to fulfil their responsibility to ensure that people are safe and protected from the risk of harm.

“In particular we found Bloomfield Court Inadequate for safety and Inadequate for being well led which is why we are placing the service into special measures, so that it can get the support that it needs. All people staying at Bloomfield Court have a right to receive care which is of a high quality, compassionate and safe.

“After a period of six months we will inspect again to check whether sufficient improvements have been made. If we find that the service remains inadequate, we will consider taking further action.”

CQC identified a number of areas where the provider needed to make improvements:

• There were not enough qualified nurses on duty in the service. The provider had not filled a significant number of bank and agency shifts. Forty percent of staff had left the service in the previous year.
• The management team were out of touch with day-to-day events in the service. There was little understanding of the extent of the improvements needed.
• There were a high number of incidents of violence in the service that staff did not always report. There were also a high number of patient restraints. Fewer than half of the staff had undertaken training in approved restraint techniques.

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