Horsham care home told by health regulators: You must improve

Westhope Lodge in North Street has been rated as ‘requiring improvement’ following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

In a report just out, the commission said there were eight people living at the care home at the time of their assessment which was ‘prompted in part following another assessment at one of the provider’s other local services, where we found significant shortfalls in the quality of care.’

The commission said: “We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.”

At Westhope Lodge, inspectors said, they found “two breaches of the legal regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, and governance. Risks to people were not adequately identified or managed. Staff did not always support people with medicines safely.

"People were not always supported in line with ‘Right support, Right care, Right culture’ guidelines in providing care and support which is person-centred, planned, proactive and co-ordinated.

"Governance measures were not always effective in identifying service shortfalls and failed to assess, monitor and mitigate risks relating to people’s health, safety and welfare.”

They added: “While the people we spoke to expressed that they were generally happy with their care, our assessment found elements of care which did not meet the expected standards.”

They said people told them they would like to do more for themselves, such as cooking and going out more. And, they said: “We spent time observing the support and communication between people and staff in shared areas of the house. We observed staff not always supporting people in a person-centred manner.

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"People were not always supported or encouraged to be engaged in activities. The provider had not always ensured staff had received effective training to support people’s individual needs and had not always monitored staff skills or competence.”

Although Westhope Lodge was rated overall as ‘requiring improvement’, it was rated ‘Good’ in areas of caring, effectiveness and response.

Westhope has been contacted for comment.