Scarborough care home placed in special measures after receiving inadequate CQC rating

Eagle View Care Home, run by Amicura Limited, is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 42 people.

The service provides support to older people and people living with dementia.

The service can also support younger adults and adults with a physical disability.

At the time of the inspection there were 26 people using the service.

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staff practice and the culture of the service.

Following this inspection, the home’s overall rating has dropped from good to inadequate as has its rating for being safe, caring and well-led.

Its ratings for being effective and responsive have dropped from good to requires improvement.

Linda Hirst, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said: “When we inspected Eagle View Care Home, it was concerning to see the lack of strong leadership displayed by the provider, Amicura Limited and the culture they created didn’t assure the delivery of high-quality care.

“They didn’t have effective systems in place to manage, monitor and prevent risks to people.

“We found risk assessments and care plans weren’t in place for people’s mental or physical health needs.

“They also didn’t have enough information to guide staff on how to support people when they were behaving in a way that could affect others.

“People weren’t always protected from the risk of abuse.

“During the inspection, we referred two concerns to the local authority safeguarding team.

“One person wasn’t supported with their continence during the day and the other was someone being restrained inappropriately.

“We found people weren’t always fully supported to be independent.

“This included not being supported to take part in activities, engage in conversation and maintain links with the community and people around them. This included limited interactions with staff.

“Therefore, people were left with no stimulation other than television and a smart device for significant periods of time.

"We have told Eagle View Care Home where we expect to see rapid and widespread improvements and will continue to monitor them closely to keep people safe while this happens.

“We will return to check on their progress and won’t hesitate to take action if people are not receiving the care they have a right to expect.”

Inspectors found:

There were medicine stock discrepancies which could not be accounted for.

Some areas of the service required cleaning and maintenance.

There were some gaps in required recruitment checks.

There was mixed feedback from family members as to whether they were involved in their relatives' care.

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the systems in place did not support this practice.

People’s communication needs were not always robustly considered or met.

The quality of the service had deteriorated since the previous inspection.

However:

People had access to a regular GP who carried out a weekly visit.

A new activities co-ordinator had been recruited.

Information about making a complaint was accessible for people and their relatives.

The full report can be found on the CQC website.