The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has dropped the rating for Martindale Road from requires improvement to inadequate, and placed it into special measures to protect people, following an inspection in June.
Run by Community Integrated Care, Martindale Road is a care home for up to seven autistic people and people with a learning disability. Five people were living in the home during this inspection. This inspection was prompted by concerns people shared with CQC about the service not always caring for residents in a safe and kind way.
Because of this inspection, CQC have dropped the home’s rating from requires improvement to inadequate overall. CQC have also dropped the home’s ratings for caring and well-led from requires improvement to inadequate. CQC have again rated the home requires improvement for safe, effective, and responsive.
The service is now in special measures which means it will be kept under close review and re-inspected to check on the progress of these improvements. CQC have also taken further regulatory action to protect people and will report on this when legally able to do so.
Gill Hodgson-Reilly, CQC deputy director of operations in London, said:
“We were deeply concerned to find staff at Martindale Road were often focused on routines instead of the preferences of the people they cared for, and didn’t always have the skills to meet people’s needs.
“Inspectors saw staff didn’t always communicate meaningfully or kindly with the people they cared for, and didn’t always try to understand their needs. When people made noise, we saw staff often tried to make them quiet instead of finding out what they might need.
“Staff didn’t always know how to communicate with people who didn’t use words because they hadn’t always been given enough training, and many told us they felt managers didn’t support or listen to them.
“Previous managers hadn’t always supported staff well and hadn’t always acted on concerns they were told about, risking people’s safety. We found possible abuse against a resident had been raised to managers in December 2023, but they hadn’t investigated this until June 2024. This left the person at risk of suffering further abuse, which is completely unacceptable.
“We also found the service didn’t always ensure people’s quality of life was good. Staff didn’t support people to join activities or set goals, and people spent large amounts of time in their beds.
“Shortly before this inspection there was a change in senior management, and new leadership had also found and taken steps to begin improving on many of the concerns we found. However, they hadn’t had enough time to make and embed these improvements.
“We’ve shared our findings with the provider and will be monitoring the home closely to ensure people are safe while improvements are made. We’ve also taken further regulatory action to protect people, which we’ll publish when we’re legally able to do so.”
Inspectors also found:
- Staff didn’t always have the skills to keep people safe and people’s care records weren’t always up to date on how to do this. For example, staff didn’t know how to support someone who regularly injured themself when feeling distressed. The provider has recently begun addressing this with new training
- People’s care records didn’t always include their preferences or how they felt about their care
- Some staff said there weren’t enough of them to meet people’s needs, and inspectors saw staff didn’t always spend quality time with people
- Leaders hadn’t always investigated or made improvements when things went wrong, meaning people weren’t protected from mistakes happening again
- Some staff said they had previously faced consequences or been ignored by leaders when speaking up about problems, meaning leaders had missed significant issues with people’s care. Since the recent senior management change, staff felt some improvements had been made, but some said they didn’t always feel involved in this process.