A care service in Sheffield, has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and placed in special measures to protect people, following an assessment carried out in February.
Norbury Court, run by Roseberry Care Centres (Yorkshire) Limited, is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 60 people. At the time of this assessment there were 54 people using the service.
The assessment was prompted in part due to concerns about the culture in the service, staff training and the personal care being provided to people.
Following this assessment, the home’s overall rating has dropped from requires improvement to inadequate, as have its ratings for being safe and well-led. Its ratings for being caring and responsive have dropped from good to requires improvement. On this occasion, the home wasn’t rated for how effective it was; therefore, it remains rated requires improvement from a previous inspection.
The service has been placed in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and it will continue to monitor to check sufficient improvements are being made. If CQC doesn’t see rapid and widespread improvements, further action will be taken.
Alan Stephenson, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said:
“When we assessed Norbury Court, it was concerning to see a lack of strong leadership, and the culture they created didn’t provide high-quality care. This lack of strong leadership was affecting people living at the home because there weren’t good enough processes in place to enable staff to provide safe, dignified care.
“For example, staff told us people had to stay in their night clothes during the day as there weren’t any clean clothes available, and they were having to bed bath people instead of giving them proper showers because there weren’t enough towels. All of this was because of poor laundry processes which saw dirty laundry pile up, and there not being any room for staff to clean, dry and sort washing. This is totally unacceptable and people at Norbury Court deserve to be treated with much more dignity and be given access to the same facilities that other people are able to take for granted.
“Additionally, we saw the home was dirty and needed a deep clean. Many areas were poorly maintained with dirty armchairs, storerooms were extremely untidy and disorganised and there was a strong, unpleasant smell in some parts of the home. All of these issues put people living here at risk of infection.
“We were pleased to see that people were able to visit their loved ones whenever they wanted. However, people’s relatives told us they often had to wait outside for very long periods of time waiting to be let in, as staff weren’t around, and when they raised the issue they weren’t given an explanation. We also didn’t see any action taken by Norbury to address this issue to stop it from happening again.
"We have told Norbury Court where we expect to see rapid and widespread improvements and will continue to monitor them closely to keep people safe while this happens. We will return to check on their progress and won’t hesitate to take action if people are not receiving the care they have a right to expect.”
Inspectors found:
- Relatives didn’t always feel able to raise concerns and when they’d made complaints about how staff were treating people and missing personal items, the manager was very abrupt, and their concerns weren’t addressed.
- People had not consistently received person-centred care which promoted their independence, choice, and control.
- People’s mealtime experience required improvement to ensure people were supported appropriately.
- People were not provided with sufficient meaningful activities, linked to people’s hobbies, interests or culture.
However,
- Inspectors received positive feedback about the food provided.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.