Three Shropshire care homes are told to improve

The reports for Ellesmere House, in Ellesmere, The Old School House in Telford and Barclay Gardens in Donnington have been made public.

They are among more than 50 care homes across the Midlands to be rated in the latest batch of inspection reports by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

All three have been given a "requires improvement" rating, one up from the worst possible "inadequate".

Inspection teams visited the homes between May and July this year and spoke to management, staff, residents and relatives as well as inspecting records.

At Ellesmere House, inspectors said the staff had received training to enable them to support people safely "however, this was not always kept up to date".

They also said staff treated people as individuals and with dignity and knew their preferences in relation to their care.

But the report added: "The opinions of the people who lived at the home were sought but the provider did not always act on their feedback in a timely manner.

"Concerns we had identified at our last inspection had not been fully addressed and similar concerns were found at this inspection"

Harry Dowling, responsible individual for the care home. said: "We are not complacent and are putting together an action plan that we are determined will help pull us up a category at least. We know we need to tighten up a little bit but we have improved on the previous report."

At The Old School House, people told inspectors they felt safe. Inspectors found that people were supported to make decisions and choices but staff did not understand the requirements of the law to support people who lacked mental capacity to ensure their human rights were fully protected.

However the report said: "Staff were kind towards the people they supported and interacted with people calmly and positively."

And at Barclay Gardens, run by Coverage Care Services Limited, inspectors found that incidents where people had been potentially harmed had not always been reported to managers. They also found that there were periods of time when some people were left unsupervised.

But people told inspectors staff were caring and they were able to have choice and control over the things that were important to them.

Under CQC's new programme of inspections, all of England's adult social care services are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Sue Howard, deputy chief inspector for adult social care in the central region, said: "People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care.

"If that is what we find on inspection - we give the service a rating of good, or outstanding.

"Where we find that services are not good enough, we will give a rating of requires improvement or inadequate.