27 March 2021
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Rossendale Nursing Home is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to 18 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 21 people in premises made from two adapted town-houses close to the centre of St Annes.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were at risk of harm because the provider had not ensured risks were assessed and managed effectively. Medicines were not managed safely and properly. We found some shortfalls in relation to infection prevention and control. There were sufficient numbers of staff deployed to meet people’s needs, but the service relied heavily on agency staff, which impacted the consistency of care for people living at the home. We have made a recommendation about ensuring recruitment records are retained in line with legal requirements.
The provider has repeatedly failed to assess, monitor and improve the quality of the service. This left people at risk of avoidable harm.
We saw some positive interactions between staff and people who lived at the home. Staff spoke positively about their work and the support they received from the registered manager.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 23 December 2020). The service was rated requires improvement for the last three consecutive inspections.
The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection enough improvement had not been made and the provider was still in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about pressure area care, medicines management, safeguarding concerns, falls and risks related to the management of swallowing difficulties. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks. As a result, we carried out a focussed inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.
The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to inadequate. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
Since the inspection, the risk has been mitigated because commissioners terminated their contract with the service. All service users were moved to alternative placements and no one is currently living at the home.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Rossendale Nursing Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.
We have identified breaches in relation to medicines management, management of risk, recruitment processes and good governance.
Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.