On Monday 21 November, BBC One’s Panorama will broadcast findings from its undercover reporting in two nursing homes in Cornwall, run by the Morleigh Group, which will highlight poor standards of care that people should never experience.
Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said:
“We are taking tough action against the Morleigh Group to protect the people living in four of its nursing homes in Cornwall. This follows a significant deterioration in the quality of care it has been providing as uncovered through our most recent inspections.
“We have had serious concerns with the Morleigh Group for some time. We have kept this provider under close scrutiny, responded to issues raised directly with us and have inspected its services 22 times in the last two years.
“Having previously rated all four of its nursing homes as Requires Improvement, we re-inspected its Collamere and Elmsleigh services last month and as soon as the concerns from Panorama were shared with us, we brought forward our planned inspections of its other nursing homes, Clinton House and St Theresa’s.
“In all four nursing homes, we were appalled to have found that the Morleigh Group had allowed the quality of care to decline.
“A rating of Requires Improvement was a clear signal that the provider needed to act. We have also taken enforcement action by issuing warning notices and we raised our concerns with Cornwall Council and with the local clinical commissioning group, which provided support in the homes to help them improve.
“Our objective had been for the Morleigh Group to live up to its responsibility to consistently provide people with safe, high-quality and compassionate care. These are people's homes and they should be able to experience a good quality of life there.
“The owner, Mrs Juleff, had every opportunity to get this right but she failed. She has squandered the support from both Cornwall Council and the local clinical commissioning group. Any improvements we had seen were short-lived and she has allowed the services to deteriorate even further. She has utterly neglected her duty of care to the residents of these homes.
“I am sorry that people living in these nursing homes have had to experience such poor care from the Morleigh Group. It completely undermines the good services we know exist elsewhere.
“A rating of Requires Improvement should send a clear warning to all adult social care providers that they have to act to put things right. If providers do not do what we expect then the impact this has on people will get worse, not better.
“There is no place for poor quality care in this country and I am clear that CQC will continue to use its powers to ensure people experience the good quality care they have every right to expect.”
Further information
- All of CQC’s enforcement action is subject to a period of appeal and so, CQC is prevented from disclosing the details of this until this process is fully complete. CQC is working closely with its regional partners to ensure the continuity of care for people living at these homes.
- Previous inspection reports are available on CQC’s website, which detail CQC’s findings at Clinton House Nursing Home, St Theresa’s Nursing Home, Collamere Nursing Home and Elmsleigh Nursing Home.
- On 7 November 2016, the owner of the Morleigh Group, Mrs Juleff, informed relatives and residents of Clinton House Nursing Home that she had decided to close this service voluntarily. CQC has received a notice of cancellation from the provider. Cornwall Council and the local clinical commissioning group are leading on the process of finding new accommodation and nursing care for the people who live there.
- As detailed in CQC’s State of Care report, nearly 100 care homes rated as Requires Improvement or Inadequate during the first year of CQC’s new inspection programme closed, either as a result of CQC’s enforcement action or due to a provider’s decision to close voluntarily. Also, three quarters of adult social care services that were initially rated Inadequate improved following re-inspection (which means nearly a quarter of re-inspected services were not able to improve their ratings). Half of services rated as Requires Improvement that were re-inspected (904 out of 1,850) had no change to their rating. In 153 cases CQC found that the care had become Inadequate.
- As of 10 November 2016, CQC had rated 19,010 active adult social care services. These include:
- 223 (1%) Outstanding
- 13,993 (74%) Good
- 4,408 (23%) Requires Improvement
- 386 (2%) Inadequate
- Since 1 October 2014, CQC has been inspecting care all adult social care services using its specialised, expert-led and intelligence-driven regulatory model, which leads to ratings of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate to help people make informed choices about their care and to encourage improvement. For further information about how CQC regulates adult social care in England, please visit: www.cqc.org.uk/content/adult-social-care-providers.
A rating of Requires Improvement should send a clear warning to all adult social care providers that they have to act to put things right.
Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care