Valewood House Nursing Home, Haslemere, rated as Inadequate by CQC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Valewood House Company Limited that it must make urgent improvements at Valewood House Nursing Home, Haslemere, Surrey, or face further enforcement action.

During an unannounced inspection in November, inspectors found that the service, in Bell Vale Lane, was failing to provide care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs or well led. As a result of the inspection, the provider was issued with two warning notices.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all adult social care services are being given a rating to help people choose care. Overall, Valewood House 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/1-109737388.

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

There were not enough staff employed to ensure the safe running of the home. Inspectors saw that staff were rushed and had little time to spend with people outside care delivery. People told inspectors that they were unable to get attention from staff when they needed assistance. There was a high reliance on agency nursing staff.

Inspectors found that parts of the home were dirty.

Medicines were not managed safely.

Some people in the home felt unsafe because of the behaviour of others who lived there. Staff were not always available to intervene and keep people safe.

While some examples of good, personalised, care were found, this was not consistent and people could not be sure that their care needs would be met.

Care records lacked detail and had not always been used effectively. While people living in the home were involved in day to day decisions about their care, they told inspectors they did not feel involved in planning what support they needed. People told inspectors that they did not feel listened to.

There was a lack of management oversight over clinical matters and quality assurance, and no system to check the effectiveness of the training that staff had received.

Adrian Hughes, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the south, said:

“It is unacceptable that people living at Valewood House Nursing Home were not receiving care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive to their needs or well led.

“We identified a lot of worrying issues here, and I would urge everyone to read our full report. It is vital that Valewood House Company Limited ensures that it takes action to address the shortfalls we have identified so that the essential improvements are made.

“We will return in due course to check whether the required improvements have been made – and will take further action if they have not.”

Ends

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