Norfolk care home rated inadequate & put into special measures, by CQC
The decision from the Care Quality Commission follows an inspection of Merle Boddy House, in Dereham last October
A residential care home in Norfolk for those with learning disabilities has been rated inadequate and put into special measures, by the Care Quality Commission.
It follows an inspection of Merle Boddy House, in Dereham last October.
It's run by Mid-Norfolk Mencap, is a residential care home supporting up to ten autistic people or people with a learning disability.
The CQC has also dropped their ratings on how safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led it is.
Inspectors found:
-The home had implemented blanket restrictions based on risk management for specific people, which affected the freedom of other residents to make choices in their daily lives.
-This included restrictions on when people could shower, access their personal food in the kitchen, or look out of the home’s ground floor windows.
-The home didn’t always monitor people’s health needs to identify and reduce risks, such as for people losing weight unexpectedly or experiencing regular falls.
-Staff sometimes relied on a video monitor to carry out welfare checks instead of actual in-person checks.
-People’s medicines weren’t always managed safely, particularly in relation to the management of constipation and associated risks.
-There were only two staff on each night shift, which would not be enough to safely evacuate people in case of any emergency such as a fire.
-Leaders had identified a need for people to be more involved in choices about their own care, but more work needed to be done on this. Inspectors saw some staff trying to source meaningful feedback from people.
"We’ll continue to monitor the home closely"
Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said:
“When we inspected Merle Boddy House, we found a service without an open culture of safety, where care wasn’t always personalised to people’s needs and wishes. While some people told us they liked living in the home, we found people’s quality of life varied significantly depending on their needs and the level of funding they were receiving.
“Leaders hadn’t always trained staff to support people with specific needs or conditions, and care records lacked detail to guide them. For example, some staff couldn’t communicate with residents who were experiencing changes in their verbal abilities linked to living with dementia, meaning staff didn’t always respond quickly to their needs or act to minimise their discomfort or distress.
“Staff also didn’t always understand people’s rights around consent when delivering care, which could disrespect their rights, and didn’t always support people to be as independent as possible.
“We saw people with less funding missed out on activities and community access, leading to feelings of jealousy as recorded in people’s care records. The home needed to escalate funding concerns where needed and explore inclusive activities to make sure people with less funding still felt like full members of their community.
“Leaders lacked oversight of people’s care and had failed to make sure people were safeguarded from risks including abuse, harassment, or neglect. They’d also allowed a closed culture to develop, in which staff didn’t always feel they could speak up and leaders hadn’t always listened when they did so.
“When people had experienced harm, leaders hadn’t fully investigated these incidents or reported them to outside organisations such as the CQC and the local authority, as legally required. As a result, opportunities to learn and protect people in the future had been missed.
“We expect health and social care providers to support autistic people and people with a learning disability in line with the right support, right care, right culture guidance, and guarantee them the safety, choices, dignity, and independence that most people are able to take for granted. It wasn’t acceptable that leaders were allowing a culture to exist where people weren’t being given the opportunity to lead their best lives.
“We’ve shared our findings with the home’s current management team, appointed following our inspection, so they know where improvements must be made. We’ll continue to monitor the home closely to ensure people are safe while this happens.”
What has those who run the care home said?
A spokesperson for Mid Norfolk Mencap said:
"We are committed to learning from, and acting upon, the CQC report ratings and findings and to implementing important and immediate changes in our service provision.
"We have already taken immediate steps to ensure we immediately improve standards for our residents and provide outstanding care for all our people.
"This includes a restructure, improved levels of resource, providing best-practice training across the charity and specifically within Merle Boddy House".