Southall Care Home Rated as Inadequate by Inspector
Shackleton Medical Centre says it will appeal against findings of report
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January 10, 2023
A Southall care home has hit back at the care watchdog after an inspector said the safety of their service was inadequate. The service was told to improve after an inspector found a volunteer without proof of training looking after elderly residents.
Shackleton Medical Centre in Southall offers residential and nursing care. The home also provides specialist care for residents living with diabetes, epilepsy, early stages of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The CQC has told the care home that it requires improvement following an inspection in September 2022. The report, which was published on New Year’s Eve deemed the safety of the care home as inadequate, the lowest possible rating.
The care, effectiveness and leadership of the care home all required improvement after the inspection. This is a downgrade from the last inspection in 2021, which said the same factors were “good”, although the home still required improvement overall.
Following the inspection, manager Rosie Hall has disputed the findings of the report. She told the Local Democracy Service that the home is “in the process of challenging these claims within the CQC report”.
Ms Hall said, “I started here in March and have made many really good improvements. In previous positions, I have never got below good in CQC inspections. I am not the kind of manager who will not ensure the gold standard in care. ”
During the inspection in September, staff told the inspector that they felt supported by the manager. One staff member said: “The manager helps everyone. Everyone is the same. Whenever you go to her and she is always there for us. I would say if she is there for the patients. She’s fantastic.”
Another said, “The manager and the clinical lead are really nice and are improving the home day by day. Really amazing. Every direction people are professional and personal.”
The inspector was also impressed with how staff members interacted with residents. The report said, “We noted that when we observed staff interactions and engagement with people, that they were treated and supported in a kind, caring and respectful manner.
“People were supported to maintain relationships with people who were important to them. Relatives and friends were supported to visit the home and if they were unable to visit in person video calls were arranged.”
But, the inspector said in the report that they were concerned for the safety of the residents. The inspector states in the report that a volunteer had been called in to replace a member of staff who could not work but no proof of training for the volunteer could be found.
The report said, “When we asked the administrative staff at the home for this person’s training and induction records, they confirmed there were no records as this person as they were not employed by the home. The provider was unable to confirm they had followed a robust recruitment process for this person to demonstrate safe recruitment processes were followed.”
The report continued, “At this inspection, we found a range of issues including concerns about the management of risks and staff not always fully vetted before they worked at the home. This demonstrated that the provider had not shown enough respect for people’s wellbeing and safety as they were not always following robust and effective processes to ensure people were well cared for.”
Other members of staff, employed by the home, had failed to complete the compulsory training required by the care home, the report claims. The inspector found that a nurse on duty and the clinical lead had not completed a number of mandatory training courses.
The report also said that three care workers last completed their training in 2020, despite the care home requiring staff to complete training every year. A person working in the kitchen had last completed food hygiene training in May 2020.
The report said, “The provider had identified a range of training courses staff were expected to complete but we found this had not always been undertaken. The manager confirmed that staff should complete the mandatory training annually.
“The manager confirmed staff had not completed practical moving and handling training and competency assessments had not been completed to ensure staff were competent to use equipment to support people with moving and handling safely. The manager confirmed the training had been booked for shortly after the inspection.”
Residents’ relatives also expressed concerns about the staffing levels to the inspector. One relative said, “They seem short of staff all the time, but my family member doesn’t complain. I want to be sympathetic but there are not enough staff”. Another added, “Probably not enough staff, it’s every
time I’m there, sometimes there are enough, other times not. It may be a rostering problem.”
Correction 26/01/2023: This article has been updated to remove an inaccurate claim that Shackleton won an appeal against the CQC. The CQC dropped enforcement action against the home after an inspection in December 2019. We also removed a quote alluding to the inspector having a conflict of interest. We are happy to correct the record.