The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated St Margaret's Care Home in Batley, inadequate, placed it in special measures and cancelled the service’s registration to protect people following an inspection in July.
St Margaret's Care Home, run by Halle Healthcare Limited, is a care home providing people with personal and nursing care, some of whom were living with dementia. The service can support up to 38 people. At the time of this inspection there were nine people living in the home.
This was the first time the care home had been inspected and was prompted due to serious concerns from the local authority about medicines management, safeguarding people from abuse, the environment and safe recruitment of staff.
During the inspection, CQC found nine breaches of regulation, including concerns around people’s safe care and treatment, safeguarding people from abuse, and meeting nutritional and hydration needs.
As well as the home being rated inadequate overall, as have the ratings for being safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Since the inspection, CQC has cancelled the home’s registration to prevent them from providing these services. This is always a last resort, when other measures haven’t been successful in supporting a provider to improve.
Sheila Grant, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said:
When we inspected St Margaret's Care Home, it was concerning to see a lack of strong leadership, and a culture that didn’t encourage high-quality care. This meant people living at the home weren’t receiving safe, dignified or person-centred care.
Staff didn’t have adequate training to recognise the signs of abuse. We identified several safeguarding concerns that staff hadn’t dealt with to keep people safe and protected from harm, including allegations of financial abuse. This is unacceptable and people living at St Margaret’s deserve a better standard of care in a place they call home.
Leaders hadn’t created a safe environment for people to live in. The home was under renovation, but there weren’t any risk assessments in place to keep people safe while this happened. Also, we found a bolted fire door, which had been identified in a health and safety audit dated March 2024. However, managers hadn’t taken any action to resolve this which put people at risk if there was a fire.
During our visit, we found unnecessary restrictions were placed on people, for example, someone told us, staff never let them go out, not even for a walk or in the garden.
Additionally, we saw there weren’t always meaningful activities being offered. One person said they had started smoking due to boredom and a lack of activities. Another person living with diabetes said they were comfort eating as there was nothing to do.
We’ve taken action against St Margaret's Care Home, to prevent them from operating. Taking this action is always a last resort when other measures to support a home to improve hasn’t been successful. We understand the distress this can cause to people living at a home, and their loved ones, but we believed people were at serious risk of coming to harm if we didn’t take this action. We will be monitoring the home closely whilst it supports people moving to alternative services.
Inspectors found:
- Staff did not always ensure people received their medicines as prescribed.
- Risks to people had not been assessed, monitored and reviewed.
- Dietary needs were not being met as people prescribed supplements were not receiving these items.
- A number of environmental hazards were present, including fire safety concerns.
- Systems to demonstrate oversight and governance were absent and leadership was inadequate.
- Staff did not receive sufficient training for their role and unsafe recruitment practices were evident.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the next few days.