CQC rate St. Theresa’s Nursing Home, Cornwall, Inadequate

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told St. Theresa’s Nursing Home in Calington, Cornwall that it must make improvements to protect the safety and welfare of people living there.

CQC carried out unannounced focussed inspection at the home in September this year and Inspectors identified a number of areas where improvements were required.

During their inspection, CQC found that the home, operated by Morleigh Limited, was failing to provide care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive or well led.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all adult social care services are being given a rating to help people choose care. Overall, St.Theresa's Nursing Home has been rated as Inadequate.

A full report from the inspection has been published on the CQC website: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-1015327520.

The report identifies a number of areas in which improvements are required, including:

The service disregarded the needs of people in relation to their care and treatment in a significant way. Inspectors found there were serious risks to people’s safety because the service had not properly assessed the risk to people regarding pressure sores, wound care, weight loss and falls. Where people were assessed as being at risk there was not enough action taken to provide safe and appropriate treatment.

There was no full time manager in place and the management of the service was found to be inconsistent. This resulted in poor care for people living there. Inspectors found there were insufficient numbers of permanently employed nurses who knew people’s needs. This resulted in the nursing care provided to people being inadequate and putting people at risk.

Deborah Ivanova, Interim Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the South, said:

“We found that the care provided at St. Theresa’s Nursing Home very fell far from what we expect services to provide. It is unacceptable that the provider has failed to pick up on or address the safety risks identified by our inspectors and we have informed the provider, Morleigh Limited of what improvements we expect from them.

“People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care and we have told the provider that they must take action as a priority.

“We will return to the service soon to check on any improvements and will report on our findings. If we find that the service being provided remains inadequate, we will consider taking further steps to cancel its registration with CQC."

Any regulatory decision that CQC takes is open to challenge by a registered person through a variety of internal and external appeal processes.

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