Residents of nursing home near Bridgnorth at risk, say inspectors

Arden Grange Nursing Home is putting residents "at risk of avoidable harm", the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said.

In its latest report of the home in Ditton Priors published on October 25, the safety was graded 'inadequate' by the CQC and other areas inspecting how effective, caring, responsive and well-led the home is 'require improvement'.

The inspection was unannounced and carried out by two CQC inspectors on September 18.

The official CQC report states: "Since our previous inspection the quality and safety of the service provided for people had deteriorated.

"People's safety was not always effectively assessed and managed at the home; and there was a pattern of not always reporting events that would reasonably be thought to be a safeguarding concern to the local authority."

The registered manager for the care home resigned before the inspection and a newly appointed one started the application process to register with the CQC while the inspection was taking place.

At the time of the inspection, the home cared for 42 people over the age of 65.

The report added: "At the inspection, we have identified breaches in relation to; safeguarding people from the risk of abuse, assessing and mitigating risks, fit and proper persons employed, governance of the service provided and failing to notify the CQC of events they had a legal responsibility to do so.

Conduct

"People had individualised risk assessments which were often scored to reflect the level of risk and these had been regularly reviewed. However, these risk assessments were not taking into account all available information.

"We checked four people's recruitment records and found that their conduct in previous social care roles had not been sufficiently explored; even when there was reason for concern.

"We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our reinspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner."

The report did find certain areas of the care home were being managed well, including the kitchen being awarded the highest rating for food safety, services and equipment being regularly checked, enough staff to meet people's needs and managing teams being "open", "immediately responsive" and "keen to make improvements".

Simon Badland, of the care home, said: “The inspection took place immediately after the manager and three nurses resigned.

"The running of the home was taken over by our operations director.

"Since then a new manager and nurses have been recruited. CQC has revisited and are impressed with the progress made.

"We are working closely with them to ensure that an “outstanding” rating is obtained at the next inspection.”