The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Kingswood House in Thurcroft, Rotherham, as inadequate and placed it into special measures to protect people following an inspection in October.
Kingswood House, run by Elysium Healthcare No.4 Limited, provides personal care and nursing care, mainly to autistic people or people with a learning disability. This was CQC’s first inspection of the service.
Following this inspection, CQC has rated the areas of safe, effective and well-led as inadequate. Caring and responsive are rated as requires improvement.
During CQC’s inspection, due to the level of concerns found, inspectors issued two warning notices to focus Kingswood House’s attention on making immediate improvements regarding safe care and treatment, and how the service is managed. CQC has also placed the home into special measures, which involves close monitoring to ensure people are safe while these improvements are made.
Victoria Marsden, CQC deputy director of operations in the north said:
"When we inspected Kingswood House, we found failings in leadership that placed people at unnecessary risk of harm. Leaders weren’t managing the service well, meaning people weren’t receiving the safe and person-centred care they deserved.
“Instability within the management team had caused a detrimental impact on the quality of care provided. This lack of oversight and poor supervision from leaders resulted in staff not being supported appropriately to work to the best of their abilities.
“Disorganisation within the staff team often led to people missing important appointments. Relatives had repeatedly reminded staff about their loved ones missed appointments and fed back that when they did attend, the home sometimes forgot to give people important documents they needed to take with them.
“Additionally, leaders failed to improve how incidents were dealt with to ensure people were kept safe, despite this being raised previously. Commissioners also raised concerns about the service’s ability to adequately assess people’s needs and record important information about incidents.
“CQC has placed the service into special measures and is monitoring it closely to keep people safe while improvements are made. The framework provides a structured timeframe for the home to understand when improvements must be made and what further action CQC will take if this doesn't happen.”
Inspectors found:
- Kingswood House didn’t assess people’s needs and risks properly meaning they could be placed at risk of unsafe care.
- Leaders weren’t following their own policy in relation to learning from incidents.
- Leaders didn’t have the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively to ensure people received appropriate care.
- The service didn’t act on concerns raised by professionals about poor practice in a timely manner.
- Staff didn’t ensure care records were up to date, and most were of poor quality.
- The service had set mealtimes and menus which limited people’s choice and didn’t promote their independence.
- Kingswood House wasn’t working to reduce and mitigate the need for restrictive practices on people.