The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told the Sandylane Limited, the provider of Sandy Lane Hotel, a care home in Bridlington, to make further improvements following an inspection in April.
This unannounced inspection was carried out to follow up on action CQC told the provider to take after the previous inspection in June last year. Following which, the provider submitted an action plan showing what improvements they planned to make.
Sandylane Limited provides accommodation and personal care for up to 31 people. It was providing care for 23 people at the time of the inspection.
The provider remained in breach of regulations regarding person-centred care, information systems, as well as safe care and treatment. They were also found to be in breach of additional regulations regarding consent and staff training.
Following this inspection, the overall rating remains inadequate. It also remains inadequate for being safe and well-led. The rating for how effective the service remains as requires improvement. However, caring and responsive were not included in this inspection and remain rated as good.
The service will remain in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made. The CQC have already started to take action and are prepared to use regulatory powers to prevent the provider from operating in order to keep people safe.
Jenny Wilkes, CQC deputy director for Yorkshire said:
“When we inspected Sandy Lane Hotel care home, we continued to find poor leadership. Our experience tells us that when a service isn’t well-led, it’s less likely they’re able to meet people’s needs in the other areas we inspect, which is what we found here. It was concerning the management team still hadn’t addressed all of the issues we found at our previous inspection.
“The poor leadership is clear from the lack of effective systems in place across the service. From failing to ensure equipment was in good working order, to medicine management, the provider wasn’t providing safe care, putting people at risk of harm.
“Staff didn’t have proper training to meet the needs of those with a learning disability or autistic people using the service. We were told that staff were registered for training to support them, however, we found this wasn’t the case as staff hadn’t completed or even been enrolled to do the training. This puts people at risk of their needs not being met. We raised this with the manager who ensured two members of staff completed the training by the second day of the inspection and told us that all staff had now also been enrolled.
“We found people’s safety wasn’t always prioritised as care plans and risk assessments weren’t always up to date or clear so staff could monitor if any adjustments needed to be made to keep people safe. Also, there weren’t any safety checks on bedrails to ensure they were well maintained to prevent people from getting trapped.
“People at Sandy Lane Hotel deserve a much better standard of care and leaders must take immediate action to make improvements.
“We will continue to monitor the service closely to ensure significant improvements are made. If we are not assured people are receiving safe care, we will not hesitate to take further action even if this results in the closure of the service.”
Inspectors found:
- The provider had failed to make the required improvements to the safety and quality of the service
- Information systems in place were ineffective at identifying shortfalls and failed to support sufficient improvements
- People did not always receive their medicines as prescribed and processes were not followed to ensure people's medicines were in date and safe to administer
- Risks to people’s safety and wellbeing were not effectively assessed and mitigated and there was a lack of oversight to ensure people’s care was delivered in line with their care plans
- Some equipment and areas of the service could not be appropriately cleaned and were not clean during the inspection
- People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.
However:
- People and their relatives were positive about the staff and the care provided. Communication with people's relatives and relevant healthcare professionals had improved whilst the new management team were in post
- Feedback about the delivery of the service had started to be gathered and used to make some changes.