A report into a troubled nursing home effectively closed down by Kent County Council has revealed it “required improvement” in four out of five categories.
Barham House, near Canterbury, was forced to shut and find new homes for its residents after the authority cancelled its contract with the company running it.
Now, the Care Quality Commission has published the report which led to the drastic action being taken last month.
It say its inspection in January resulted in ‘requires improvement’ ratings in safety, effectiveness, responsiveness and how well the home in The Street, Barham, was being led.
But the report also praises the quality of care as ‘Good’.
After the results were revealed to the county council, the authority says it had no choice but to terminate the home’s registration, effectively putting it out of business.
The home had previously had an overall “requires improvement” rating under former management before it was taken over by A Bright Care Ltd in 2019.
The latest CQC report, which reaches the same conclusion, highlights numerous areas of concern.
In summary, the inspectors say: “There was a lack of leadership at the service and this had impacted on all areas of people’s care.
“The provider and manager did not have scrutiny and oversight of the service and risks to people’s safety and welfare continued unchallenged.
“Areas of the service were not clean and infection control risks were not well managed.
“Staff did not always wear and dispose of personal protective clothing safely.
“Robust arrangements were not in place to clean all areas of the building and minimise the risk of infection being spread around the service.
“Risks to people had not been fully assessed and action was not consistently taken to keep them as safe as possible.
“People’s care had not been planned and detailed guidance had not been provided to staff about how to keep people safe and well.
“Staff had not been recruited safely. Checks on staffs’ previous conduct and character were not explored before they came to work at the service. “Concerns from the Disclosure and Barring service had not been followed up. Staff did not have the skills they needed to keep people safe and respond in an emergency.”
“There has been issues but we haven’t been able to magically make things happen…”
A Bright Care director Mia Rhodes said she accepted there were some difficulties and failures, but was deeply disappointed the home had to close, leaving 17 residents needing new accommodation and 19 staff jobless.
She previously told KentOnline: “We have worked flat out during the pandemic, despite staff difficulties, to keep our residents safe and happy and have only lost one to Covid.
“It’s not our decision to close the home and we have fought it very hard, and invested so much to make improvements to the old building, including a new roof, which hasn’t been easy.
“There has been issues but we haven’t been able to magically make things happen.
“We asked for more time to get things right but KCC were not prepared to (give us it).”
The home’s website was still active this week but nobody was answering the phone when KentOnline called to make inquiries about its future.
Signs on fencing at the home suggest some sort of construction is taking place on the site.
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