The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Pine Lodge Care Home in Sittingbourne, inadequate and placed it in special measures following an inspection in July.
This unannounced inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about access to health care, diabetes management, inaccurate records, staff training and support, medicines management and ineffective checks and audits.
The care home, run by Eleanor Nursing and Social Care Limited, provides accommodation and personal care for up to 59 people. At the time of this inspection, there were 58 people living at the home.
Following this inspection, Pine Lodge Care Home has been rated inadequate overall. It has also been rated inadequate for being safe, effective and well-led. It was rated requires improvement for being caring and responsive.
As a result, the service is now in special measures, which means it will be kept under close review by CQC to keep people safe and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made.
Neil Cox, CQC deputy director of operations in the South, said:
“When we inspected Pine Lodge Care Home, we found significant issues in many areas of the home including a lack of 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.
“We found that people weren’t protected from the risk of abuse or restrictions. An allegation of abuse was being investigated by the local authority safeguarding team at the time of our inspection.
“Three further incidents hadn’t been reported to the local authority safeguarding team, including a fall resulting in a serious injury. People were at risk of continued harm because incidents hadn’t been investigated to understand what had gone wrong and how they could be prevented from happening again.
“Another incident between two people hadn’t been investigated internally. Neither had it been reported to the local authority for their investigation and there was a potential risk it could happen again.
“Inspectors saw there were staffing issues at the home. We found the provider had enough employed staff, but they didn’t have the skills to provide the care people needed.
“Following our inspection, we reported our findings to the provider, so they know the areas where we expect to see rapid improvement. If sufficient progress hasn’t been made, we won’t hesitate to take further action to ensure people’s safety and well-being.”
Inspectors found:
- There weren’t enough staff with the skills, competencies and experience to meet people's care needs
- People didn’t have all their risks assessed and staff didn’t have the information they needed to provide for their needs
- People’s medicines were not managed safely, and they had not always received their medicines as prescribed
- People weren’t involved in their care planning
- Recruitment checks had not been completed to ensure staff were of good character and had the skills and experience required for their role
- The provider identified areas for improvement but didn’t have the resources or systems to implement and embed these into practice
- People weren’t supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff didn’t support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.