CQC requires improvement at Alders Residential Home, Morecambe

2 August 2013

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told the registered provider of Alders Residential Home, Arnside Crescent, Morecambe that they must take immediate action to improve standards of care.

A report which is published on the CQC website today identifies the findings from a CQC inspection carried out in July 2013 in response to information of concern.

When they visited the home, CQC found that the provider, Calderdean Limited, was failing to meet all seven of the national standards reviewed.

By law, providers of care services must ensure that they are meeting all standards.  

Visiting inspectors reviewed a sample of care and treatment records of people living in the home, observed how care was being delivered, and spoke with residents and members of staff. As a result they found that improvements were required in a number of areas.

• Inspectors found that care was not always being delivered in line with resident’s individual care plans and that there were insufficient numbers of staff on duty to ensure that people’s needs were fully met.
• Inspectors observed limited social interaction between staff and people living in the home and were concerned that there was a lack of activities available.
• Residents who had been assessed as being at risk of inadequate nutrition were not always being regularly monitored and some care records viewed by inspectors were incomplete.
• Not all staff had received up to date training in key areas such as infection control, manual handling and load management. Staff had not received formal supervision sessions for over a year.
• The home did not effectively monitor the quality of service being provided and there was a lack of systems in place to improve the service by learning from incidents or errors and prevent their recurrence.

Alders Residential Home provides accommodation and personal care for up to 32 people.

Malcolm Bower-Brown, CQC’s Regional Director for the North said:

“The failings at Alders Residential Home are a real concern and we have told the provider where immediate improvements need to be made.

“We continue to monitor the situation carefully and will not hesitate to take further regulatory action should this prove necessary to ensure the people using the service receive the service they are entitled to expect."

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