Petworth care home pledges to improve after placement into special measures

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors said the home had been rated as ‘requires improvement’ after the last three consecutive inspections. At the third on January 29 this year they continued to have concerns.

Issuing their report last week they said: “This was an unannounced focused inspection to look at the key questions of safe, effective and well-led. This was because at our last inspection, on September 27 2018, the provider was in breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

"We took enforcement action against the provider and gave them a date to meet the regulations by. This inspection took place to check that improvements had been made and that they were now meeting the regulations.”But they said the home had not met the warning notices.

“We continued to have concerns. The overall rating for this home is ‘inadequate’ and the home is therefore in special measures.”

Among their findings the inspectors said: “There were serious concerns about the care people had sometimes received and the provider’s lack of oversight to ensure that appropriate improvements were made. Also risk was not well-managed and there were concerns about people’s safety.

“Staff sometimes lacked understanding about potential risks and about gaining people’s consent.”

But they said the management of the home had changed since the previous inspection. “They showed commitment and enthusiasm to implement the changes needed to improve the care people received.”

Services in special measures are kept under review, said the inspectors, and would be inspected again in six months. If not enough improvement was made, ‘we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service’.

Liam Scanlon, Shaw healthcare’s director of compliance and governance, said: “We are very disappointed with the rating and acknowledge there are a number of issues to address which we had already set our focus on prior to receiving the CQC report findings.

“The new manager we have appointed is implementing robust improvement plans along with her care team and with support of our senior management.

"We were pleased to see that the CQC reported some positive areas especially: ‘people told us that they were happy living at the home, that they felt well-cared for and safe’ and ‘staff were observed engaging and interacting with people in a kind and compassionate way’.

“We always strive to deliver the best care possible and remain committed to delivering the type of care that we would want for our own loved ones.

"We will continue to work very closely with West Sussex County Council to achieve these positive changes.”