‘Inadequate’ Burgess Hill nursing home put in special measures

Firgrove Nursing Home in Keymer Road was rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following inspections in September and December last year.

The nursing home, which provides support to older people, those living with dementia or mental health conditions, or people with long-term health needs such as Parkinson’s, will now be kept under review and will be inspected again in six months.

It is the first time the nursing home has been rated inadequate. In its last CQC inspection it was rated ‘requires improvement’ with three breaches of regulation.

At the time of this inspection, the CQC found people’s social needs were not being met and people were at risk of social isolation.

It asked the nursing home to provide an ‘action plan’ to show what it would do, and when by, to improve.

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At this latest inspection, although some improvements had been made, there remained ‘areas of significant concern’, the CQC report said. It added that it did not find the inconsistencies had impacted on the safety of people. but demonstrated ‘shortfalls in quality monitoring and management oversight of some aspects of the service’.

Quality monitoring systems were not effective in identifying shortfalls and driving improvement, the CQC report said, and the registered manager ‘lacked oversight of these processes’.

The service was not always safe or consistently well-led, the CQC report said.

There was no robust system in place to ensure that required recruitment checks on staff were always made to ensure staff were suitably skilled and qualified to carry out their roles, it added.

The registered manager had not deployed sufficient staff in a way that met people’s needs. One person said: “The staff are very good, but we don’t see them very often.”

People, however, said the staff were kind and caring. They also said they were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives.

A safeguarding policy to protect people from avoidable harm was identified by health bosses, the CQC report said. Staff knew how to recognise the potential signs of abuse and knew what action to take to keep people safe.

The nursing home was approached by the Middy for a comment.