The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Highbury House Care Home in Blackpool, Lancashire that it must make improvements to protect the safety and welfare of people living there.
CQC carried out an unannounced inspection at the home in October last year as part of the scheduled inspection programme for 2015/16. Inspectors found that the providers, Mr David Moseley & Mrs Barbara Selina Moseley, were failing to provide care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive or well led.
Overall, Highbury House Care Home has been rated Inadequate overall and has been placed into special measures.
Inspectors found that the provider had not deployed sufficient levels of skilled, trained and qualified members of staff to ensure people’s needs were met in a timely manner. The provider had failed to protect people from possible abuse. Necessary safeguarding procedures including the safe recruitment of staff, were not being followed. Infection control measures in the home were poor and had not identified many areas of concern observed during the inspection, which exposed people to the risk of infection. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 had not been formally implemented in the home, there was a lack of understanding and knowledge of the act amongst staff. The provider was not operating robust systems to monitor the quality of the service, and had failed to notify CQC of serious incidents.
A full report is available at www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-159061962
Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the North, said:
“The care we saw being provided at Highbury House Care Home falls along way short of what we expect services to provide. It is unacceptable that the provider has failed to safeguard people from potential risk or implement effective systems to monitor the quality of care being provided.
“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 have been working with Blackpool Council to ensure that people living at the home are not at undue risk. We will continue to monitor this care home. We have placed this service in special measures – and we are considering taking enforcement action and will report on this action when it is completed.”
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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For further information please contact CQC Regional Communications Officer Mark Humphreys on 0191 233 3519 or 07881656012. Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters.
For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.
Find out more
Read reports from our checks on the standards at Highbury House Care Home