The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated St Michael’s Home in Solihull, inadequate and placed it in special measures to keep people safe following an inspection in March.
St Michael’s Home, run by St. Michael’s Care Ltd, is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 21 people. The service provides support to older people, some living with dementia. At the time of this inspection there were 15 people using the service.
This unannounced inspection was prompted in part due to concerns about the quality of care people were receiving and the management of the home.
Following this inspection, the home’s overall rating has dropped from requires improvement to inadequate, as has how safe and well-led the home is. Effective, caring and responsive were not inspected, therefore effective remains rated as requires improvement and caring and responsive remains rated as good.
CQC has placed the service into special measures to focus the provider’s attention on making rapid and widespread improvements. CQC will closely monitor the service during this time and will inspect again to assess if improvements are made.
Sonia Brooks, CQC deputy director of operations in the midlands, said:
“When we inspected St Michael’s Home, it was disappointing to see issues we identified at the last inspection hadn’t been addressed, which placed people at risk of harm and demonstrated lessons hadn’t been learnt.
“Inspectors found staff weren’t managing medicines well. During a handover, a member of staff reported someone had been experiencing severe pain in their legs, however, nothing had been done to help them. As no action had been taken, an inspector had to intervene and mention to a member of staff the symptoms could be due to a potentially life-threatening blood clot. Staff called an ambulance and following a review from the paramedics, it was identified the person had a history of pain in their legs and had been prescribed medicine to relieve this. However, they hadn’t been given their medication since they were admitted to the home 10 days earlier.
“Additionally, it was concerning staff didn’t always seek appropriate medical advice when people showed signs they weren’t well. For example, staff thought someone could have an infection, however they didn’t contact medical professionals for advice. When medical professionals visited the home to see someone else, they identified the person needed to be admitted to hospital. If they hadn’t recognised how serious the situation was, it could have been life-threatening.
“We have reported our findings to the provider, and they know what they must address. We will return to carry out another inspection, and if sufficient progress hasn’t been made, we will not hesitate to take further action.”
Inspectors found:
- Risks relating to the environment and people’s health and care needs
- The home was not clean and infection control was not effectively managed
- Systems and processes for learning lessons were not robust
- The provider had increased staffing levels however people and staff did not think there were enough staff to provide safe care
- Systems to assess, monitor and improve the service were not effective in identifying shortfalls and securing improvements. Opportunities to learn lessons and make improvements to the service had not been taken
- There was a lack of effective leadership and there was not a registered manager in place at the time of this inspection
- Staff did not always work effectively with other health professionals to ensure people received appropriate care.
However,
- Staff had received training about how to protect people from the risk of abuse
- People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice.