Home dirty andineffective says care inspector

Now Rooks Care Homes Limited that it must make urgent improvements at Green Hill, in Station Road, or face enforcement action.

Green Hill specialises in caring for people suffering from dementia.

During unannounced visits in November and December 2014, inspectors found the home was “failing to provide care which was safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs or well led.”

The report identified a number of areas in which improvements were required saying “There were not always enough staff to make sure people’s needs were met. This had an impact on support at mealtimes and on the ability of staff to discretely check that people were safe.”

Care was not always delivered according to people’s care plans, and where an individual’s needs had changed this was not always reflected in the care given.

Some parts of the home were dirty and unhygienic, and had an unpleasant smell, said the report.

The provider was failing to adequately take into account people’s ability to make decisions for themselves. Quality monitoring processes were ineffective.

Adrian Hughes, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the south, said: “It is unacceptable that the people living at Green Hill were not being provided with good quality, consistent and reliable care. People should not have to live in an environment which has unpleasant odours.”

Owner Caroline Rook said: “We have commissioned our own independent audit report and the findings should be with us by the end of the week. We dispute the CQC report to the extent of how bad they were saying things were.

“Other health professionals have said people here feel well cared for.

“Care managers from the local authority have spent several hours here and said they had no undue concerns as to what they had seen.

“When we took the home over six years ago it was a failing business with the number of people cared for dropping from 27 to four. We have built it up and spent hundreds of thousands of pounds improving it.”

But a local woman whose grandfather was in Green Hill until January, said: “There was a definite lack of people being treated with dignity. It was a production line.

He was parked in front of the TV all day. I never saw any activities taking place.

“His room once had the same crumbs on the carpet for a week. There was an overwhelming stench of urine. I would come away from the home with the smell of urine on my clothing.

“I was once found him distressed as he had been made to wear slippers instead of being dressed properly in his shoes as he likes to be. I was told his shoes had been lost and when I asked how that could happen a senior carer just shrugged.

“I never once experienced Grandad being asked what he wanted for breakfast. He would be sat a table with two slices of toast and a cup of tea. On one occasion he was given a slotted spoon’s worth of cold tuna pasta. He doesn’t like tuna or pasta.

“On another occasion he was given two small slices of a child’s pizza and a quarter of a tuna sandwich. When I asked if there were alternatives I was told no.”