The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated a care home in Nailsworth inadequate and placed it in special measures, following an inspection in February.
CQC inspected Aaron House Care Limited due to concerns about the quality and safety of care being provided to people using the service.
The home is registered to accommodate up to six adults who have a learning disability or who are autistic, and it was previously rated good.
In addition to the service’s overall rating dropping to inadequate following the inspection, its ratings for being safe and well-led have also dropped from good to inadequate.
The service was not rated for the other key lines of enquiry due to the inspection being undertaken in response to specific concerns.
The home is now in special measures. This means CQC is closely monitoring it, and it will be inspected again to assess whether improvements have been made.
Cath Campbell, CQC deputy director of operations in the south of England, said:
“Poor leadership arrangements undermined the care provided to people at Aaron House Care Limited.
“The service didn’t have a registered manager at the time of inspection, and there weren’t good systems to give the home’s leaders oversight of the quality and safety of the care people received. This exposed people to the risk of receiving unsafe care.
“We also found people weren’t supported to have as much choice as possible about their care, or the activities they wanted to do.
“However, people told us they felt safe. They also said they enjoyed good relationships with their carers.
“Following the inspection, we reported our findings to the service’s leaders, so they know what they must address.
“We’re monitoring the service closely, including through inspections, and we’ll use our enforcement powers if we’re not assured people are safe – or if improvements aren’t made.”
Inspectors found:
- Staff responsibilities were not clearly allocated or defined
- Adequate audit systems were not in place to ensure the quality of care and good risk management. Consequently, issues found during the inspection had not been identified by the service’s leaders
- Although people and their relatives felt safe, people were at risk of receiving unsafe care
- People's individual risks were not always identified, assessed and mitigated – and staff were not given clear guidance or information on how to protect people
- Some staff did not know what to do in an emergency
- People's medicines were not always managed safely
- Systems to ensure safe staff recruitment were not in place
- Infection prevention and control was unsatisfactory
- People were not always protected from the risks of their environment, including those associated with fire safety and legionella
- People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives, and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible or their best interests. The service’s policies and systems did not support this.