The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has rated Willowmead Care Home, in Chelmsford, Essex as requires improvement, and told it where it must make changes to keep people safe following an inspection in August.
Willowmead Care Home, which is run by GCH (South Ltd) provides personal care for up to 60 people across two houses, Hatfield House and Wickham House. It provides support to older people, people living with dementia, as well as autistic people and people with a learning disability.
CQC inspected in part due to concerns received about how the service was managing risk and how it was safeguarding people. CQC found the service did need to make improvements in these areas.
As well as being rated requires improvement overall, the service was also rated as requires improvement for how safe, effective and well-led it was. As this was a focused inspection in response to specific concerns, CQC didn’t look at how caring or responsive the service was.
Rob Assall, CQC’s director of operations in the east of England, said:
“When we inspected Willowmead Care Home, we had some real concerns about how leaders at the service were safeguarding people at the service from the risk of abuse.
“They didn’t have good enough systems in place to protect people from the risk of either potential abuse, or restrictive practices. Although safeguarding concerns were reported to us and the local authority, incidents weren’t always investigated thoroughly internally, meaning they didn’t learn from them, so could happen again.
“We also received very concerning feedback from the relatives of some people who were living at Willowmead. They told us they were worried about their family members’ physical safety and security with one telling us their loved one had been hit by other people living at the service on more than one occasion. This is unacceptable, and leaders at the service must address this immediately.
“Staff also needed to do more to avoid restraining people as a first course of action if they become distressed. We saw a lack of evidence relating to restraint and how Willowmead were learning from those incidents or updating people’s care plans to include how they might be avoided in future.
“It was however reassuring to see that people were able to have visitors whenever they wanted, and were able to personalise their bedrooms, making it feel like a proper home. Staff gave people meaningful choices about their own care, and encouraged them to take part in activities to maximise their wellbeing.
“We’ll monitor Willowmead Care Home closely, to ensure they’ve made the improvements we’ve told them to.”