River View Care Centre a care home based in Tilehurst, Reading Berkshire has been rated as Inadequate overall by the Care Quality Commission.
River View Care Centre was rated as Requires Improvement for being caring and effective and Inadequate for being safe, responsive and well-led, following an unannounced inspection in September and October 2018.
River View Care Centre is a 137 nursing bed service that provides facilities over three floors to older adults with varying needs, including people living with dementia. The service is broken down into seven units.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, said:
“I am extremely disappointed in reading the findings of this report and feel very concerned on behalf of the people the home is supposed to be caring for. This is clearly unacceptable care and no one should ever have to tolerate living in such a home and being treated with such a lack of respect, dignity and compassion.
“Our inspectors will return to River View Care Centre in due course to see what improvements have been made. If we do not see significant improvement we will not hesitate to take further action to protect people using the service - even if this means removing the registration of the home.
“Our first priority is always the welfare of the people who are living at the service. We will continue to monitor River View Care Centre and work with the statutory agencies to make sure that people living there are safe and receive care which meet their needs. “
Medicines were not always being managed safely. Whilst medicines were being stored safely and were being administered correctly, inspectors noted plans were not in place for two people who were given medicines covertly. When inspectors spoke to nurses about this they were unclear of the correct procedure of agreement that was to be followed, prior to covert medicines being administered.
The registered manager completed ad hoc and not regular audits. This meant that the registered manager was not aware of what was happening at the service, therefore there was ineffective management. Information was not always analysed or passed to the correct people, leading to errors in care delivery and poor overview of the service.
The service, specialised in delivering care to people living with dementia, but it did not environmentally meet the needs of the people with dementia living there.
People's care was not always delivered in a dignified way. People living in the service did not always have their independence promoted or their privacy protected. On occasions it was found that staff did not maintain confidentiality, by speaking about people in front of others, or close doors when assisting with care. People were not always consulted about how they wished to have care delivered, or were not consulted prior to being assisted so care was neither responsive or fully effective. Whilst staff had received training in the Mental Capacity Act, it was observed that they did not practice the fundamental standards of the legislation.
Staff did not record information correctly. Incidents were not always reported and staff did not always understand what incidents were reportable. Information was not accurately updated in daily records. While nutrition and hydration records were maintained for all people this was not analysed correctly. As a result, some referrals were not made to health professionals to seek further help on a change to people's hydration and nutrition, specifically where considerable weight loss was noted.
You can read the report in full at when it is published on the CQC website at: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-3883899011
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