Bedford care home goes from outstanding ranking to requires improvement after health watchdog visit

A Bedford care home has gone from a previous rating of outstanding to requires improvement following a visit from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The health watchdog gave Crescent Nursing Home the drop in ranking after making two unannounced visits in October and November.

And although inspectors rated the home good in the effective, caring and responsive categories – it said overall it requires improvement and identified breaches for safety as well as in the well-led category.

However, the home – in The Crescent – has hit back, challenging some of the aspects of the report. It says it’s waiting to hear back from the CQC over its complaints, but was keen to reassure residents and their families following the drop in ranking.

You can read the full report for yourself here

The CQC said: “Medicines were not always administered safely. Information which was recorded within the medicine administration record (MAR) was not always clear or accurate. Guidance for staff was not consistent within records or person centred."

It said on one occasion when a person needed pain relief medicine and the home had run out of stock of their prescribed batch, it just gave them the same medicine which was not prescribed but held in stock.

The report went on to say: “One person who experienced seizures was prescribed rescue medicine to be administered when required. However, there was inconsistency in the information, and it did not match the care plan in place.”

The health watchdog also found:

The quality assurance processes and systems in place were not robust in identifying and addressing the shortfalls of the service

People were not always supported as individuals, or in line with their needs and preferences

However – on the plus side, CQC inspectors said:

The staff knew people well and we did not observe any negative impact to people

The provider assessed risks to ensure people were safe

The provider learned lessons when things had gone wrong

People were supported to maintain relationships, follow their interests and take part in activities that were relevant to them

A spokesperson for Apex Care Homes – which runs the residential care home for people with dementia, mental health and learning disabilities – said: “We are extremely disappointed with the rating given. Our team at The Crescent, and across Apex Care Homes, pride ourselves on providing the highest quality of care to our residents, and this report does not reflect the satisfaction expressed by our residents and their families and the hard work of staff.

“Inspections are always welcomed as they help us to identify areas for improvement, and we immediately rectified issues identified by CQC following their inspection last year. We also challenged the CQC on aspects of their report which were eventually accepted, and the report was republished after being amended. We are still awaiting the outcome from complaints made to the CQC regarding other aspects of the report.

“Our residents continue to remain safe and well looked after. The CQC report acknowledged, that there was no negative impact to our residents as a result of the issues which were identified. There were also many positive comments made including:

’Staff were passionate about the people they cared for and understood the importance of providing care, which was dignified, respectful and which enabled independence,’ and

’All staff were positive and motivated in their role. This supported a positive atmosphere and environment for people to live in and people were supported to maintain personal friendships and links with the community.’

“We would like to assure our residents, their families, and the CQC, that we will continue to do our best to provide the best care possible learning from any issues identified, as we always have.”