Critical CQC report is disputed by Horsham care home

Glen Arun Care Home in Athelstan Way said the report, published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) this month, contained ‘factual inaccuracies’.

The report was published six months after the inspection in November.

The care home was rated as ‘requires improvement’ in the categories of ‘safe’ and ‘effective’, but was marked ‘good’ for being ‘caring’, ‘responsive’ and ‘well-led’.

A spokesperson for Glen Arun, which is run by Lifestyle Care UK Ltd, said: “The report published on April 8 2015 came as a complete surprise, it contains a number of factual inaccuracies and these have been communicated to CQC by way of a 11 page document.

“On the day of the inspection – November 5 2014 the inspector did not signify or document any requirement under the Health and Social Care Act.

“We have asked CQC to explain why it has taken five months to publish the report.

“In the meantime we have asked for the report to be withdrawn whilst the situation is clarified.”

Adrian Hughes, CQC deputy chief inspector for Adult Social Care, said: “We are sorry that it has taken so long to publish the report on Glen Arun Care Home and we have apologised to the providers.

“It is not acceptable for reports to be delayed in this way as it denies people using the service and their families access to our findings.

“As part of our process in finalising reports we invite providers to send us their observations on our inspection reports before publication.

“We shared the draft report, including our detailed findings, with the representative of Lifestyle Care UK Limited and we certainly did consider the observations before we published it.

“What we failed to do was confirm with the representative of Lifestyle Care UK Limited that this has happened.

“While we made some changes to the report, these did not materially change the ratings we gave.

“Having reviewed the report again, we are satisfied that the findings are correct, although now that the report is published the provider has the right to request a review of the ratings.

“We are in discussion with the provider and will inspect again to assess whether the improvements which are required to provide safe and effective care in line with the regulations have been made.”