Autumn House Residential Home in Sandown has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and placed in special measures to protect residents.
Concerns were raised with the CQC last year regarding the safety and quality of care in the service, which cares for 44 people – many of whom live with dementia. It follows concerns raised by a whistleblower, who reported Autumn House Care Limited.
An inspection was carried out between 3rd-11th April, with inspectors shocked by their findings. As such, the CQC took urgent action to suspend the ratings of the service.
Following this inspection, the service’s overall rating has dropped from good to inadequate, as have its ratings for being safe and well-led. Effective, caring and responsive have all dropped from good to requires improvement.
CQC has placed the home into special measures, meaning it will be closely monitored to ensure people are kept safe whilst improvements are made. CQC has also proposed using its regulatory powers further, which the service has the right to appeal.
Neil Cox, CQC deputy director of operations in the South, has said:
“When we inspected Autumn House Residential Home, we found inconsistent leadership and a closed culture were behind many of the issues we saw across the service.
“Leaders allowed a closed culture to develop. Staff discovered unexplained bruising on people but failed to understand their duty to report these to CQC and the local authority safeguarding team. This forms part of a closed culture when outside partners aren’t aware of serious safety concerns.
Article continues below this advertisement “Leaders and staff didn’t recognise how to promote people’s rights, choices or independence and there was a restrictive culture within the service. This meant the people living there weren’t being supported in a person-centred way where they were able to make decisions about their own care and support. The management team weren’t monitoring staff practice to be able to identify and address this poor culture.
“Leaders had created an environment that people said often felt like a prison. People were unable to go outside or even access some parts of the home like the kitchen or the dining room when they wanted to. People’s bedroom doors locked automatically behind them and they were not provided with keys, so they were unable to access their belongings and had to ask staff to let them in. Staff also made other decisions for people, like their choice of food at mealtimes, with no consideration to what their preferences were.
“In addition, leaders hadn’t implemented good systems and processes to keep people safe and make improvements. Managers left out key information from people’s care plans which would enable staff to support people with their health conditions such as diabetes or epilepsy. We found one person had lost nearly 17 kilograms in ten months with nothing in their care plan to say how staff were supporting this person with their nutrition. Another person was at risk of pressure sores and there was nothing in their plan to say how staff would manage skin changes.
“The standard of care we saw being provided by Autumn House Residential Home is completely unacceptable. They are now in special measures which means CQC will continue to closely monitor the home to keep people safe and ensure rapid and widespread improvements are made. If this doesn’t happen, we won’t hesitate to use our regulatory powers further.”
Inspectors found:
- Staff did not manage medicines safely, and people were at risk of not receiving their prescribed medicines or receiving too much medicine.
- Staff did not have the information they needed to safely manage people’s eating and drinking needs.
- The building did not meet the needs of people with dementia as it hadn’t been adapted to meet their specific needs, making it difficult for people to get around, affecting their independence.
- People were not always safe at the service. Leaders did not have appropriate systems in place to safeguard people and they did not always address incidents to prevent them from happening again.
- There were not always sufficient staff available to support people or to safely evacuate them in an emergency.
- Leaders lacked oversight on how the service was performing and had not recognised or reviewed all the shortfalls inspectors found.
- Staff attempted to be kind and caring towards people, however they lacked knowledge and skills in supporting people living with dementia.
- Feedback from relatives about the home was mixed.
A spokesperson for the CQC has added:
“Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report has not published as soon after the inspection as it should have done. The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits. The amount of time taken to publish this report falls far short of what people using services and the home should be able to expect and CQC apologises for this.
“Any immediate action that CQC needed to take to protect people using this service was not affected and had been acted on appropriately. CQC is taking urgent steps to ensure that inspection reports are published in a much timelier manner”.
Another ‘industry’ that needs renationalisation. When profits come before people, this is what we get.
What a disgrace. Would I be right to believe some of these homes charge anything up to £600 per week for private care? Before I retired, I did maintenance work in some of these homes and what I saw was beyond belief is some cases, especially the attitudes of staff towards some of the residents. It was almost like those staff had no experience regarding nursing what so ever and no dedication towards them either.
No, you’d be wayyyy off. In excess of 1k a week. Why? Because the last government said that their homes could be sold to pay for their care….so the providers raised their prices accordingly in order to cash in. At the same time, staffing became ‘whoever is desperate enough for a job at minimum wage’, no qualifications needed. Nursing is what you get in a nursing home or hospital, care is someone to wheel round a drugs trolley and slap food on a table. Some carers really do try to care, but they are few, demoralised by the management and become whistleblowers, as above. I just wish more workers weren’t so terrified of standing up and speaking. Bravo here for the one who did.
You are 110% correct, the NHS is the same
they employ so many cannot be bothered
nurses and doctors, majority of them are only in
the profession for the perks,
Excellent guaranteed salaries, unlimited sick pay
and many companies give such workers discounts.
Working in these professions use to be a calling,
not anymore, you only have to look at many of them,
they are unfit and smoke, hardly a good advertisement
when doing such a job.
Time for change.
I have first-hand experience with residential homes. All should be governed by a centrally funded, centrally controlled organisation governed by the NHS and in partnership with local Councils. DEI should be scrapped immediately, and those recruited should be employed because of their ability and skills, not because it ticks a box. All private mobile phones should be banned during a shift. Stop playing Candy Crush when you should be working and focus on the residents.
Well done to the whistle blower, there should be more businesses called out for running things badly. But the fear of losing your job, or bullying is always the result if you get found out.
Any business who have been exposed by whistleblowers
should not be allowed to sack whistleblowers.
The truth always hurts!