Timaru a care home in Romsey, Hampshire has seen its overall rating drop from good to inadequate, following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in February.
Timaru is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care for people who may be living with a learning disability or autistic people. It is part of Liaise (South) Limited.
CQC carried out an inspection due to concerns identified during a direct monitoring assessment and from concerns raised by the Home Office.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for the service has dropped from good to inadequate. The ratings for being safe, effective and well-led have also dropped from good to inadequate. While the rating for caring dropped from good to requires improvement and responsive dropped from outstanding to requires improvement.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s director for people with learning disability and autistic people, said:
“When we inspected Timaru, we were concerned the service wasn’t encouraging people to flourish or support them to develop by giving them choices and control over their own lives.
“We were initially notified by the Home Office the provider had employed agency staff who weren’t eligible to work in the service. During our inspection, we reviewed staff records and recruitment systems to check the provider had learned lessons which were highlighted by Home Office staff. We found improvements had been made and correspondence demonstrated the provider had worked with the Home Office to make the improvements needed.
“However, while the provider had learnt lessons in respect of recruitment, we weren’t satisfied the provider had effective arrangements in place to learn lessons from incidents and accidents in relation to people's healthcare needs to ensure people were being kept safe
“We saw that people weren’t always treated with dignity. Inspectors found staff sometimes failing to engage with people, sitting on chairs looking at their mobile phones. Staff weren’t always aware of people's hobbies or interests or how to engage with them in a meaningful way. Also, care wasn’t always person-centred and often failed to promote people's dignity, privacy and human rights
“A member of staff told us that it felt institutional and they were doing the same things at the same times with the same people.
“Following the inspection, we took regulatory action to ensure people living in the service are safe. However, as this is a legal process and the provider has the right to challenge this decision, we’re unable to comment further until the process is complete.
“We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that improvements are made and fully embedded.”
CQC found the following during this inspection:
Leaders, and the culture they created, did not always support the delivery of high-quality,
person-centred care. Governance processes were ineffective and did not hold staff to account, keep people safe, protect their rights or ensure good quality care and support. There were no audit and improvement tools in place, which impacted on people achieving good outcomes.
The lack of permanent staff meant they could not promote people's individuality, protect their rights and enable them to develop and flourish.
Due to significant staff turnover and a lack of permanent staff, we could not be assured staff were aware of their responsibilities and understood how to respond to the risks associated with people's care.
A member of staff commented, "Training for agency workers is not good enough to keep people safe. Not enough training for challenging behaviours/restraints before starting work which leaves services users and staff vulnerable"
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) cabinet was not locked and was in frequent use, placing people at risk of avoidable harm.