Parklands House banned from taking residents

A damning report issued by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has revealed a catalogue of fallings at Parklands House in Falinge and has led to the home being suspended from receiving new residents.

The home for the elderly failed to meet seven of the 10 standards required of a care home following a surprise inspection. Referrals of new residents to the home have been suspended.

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission witnessed squalid conditions at the home including:

• Floors and toilets smeared with faeces.
• Bedrooms which smelt of urine.
• A resident sleeping in a bed with no sheets.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint about living conditions at the privately run home.

It was also discovered that: 

• Reasonable steps were not taken to prevent abuse from happening.
• Staff weren’t properly vetted before being employed.
• A number of relatives had raised concerns about their loved ones being left with food on their faces and wearing stained and dirty clothes. 

A visiting nurse also raised concerns about a resident who had allegedly fallen but it was unclear how the injuries had been sustained as there was no record of the accident.

A fire risk assessment carried out in July 2013 identified 42 areas that required action but the inspection found that there was no evidence to show that anything had been done.

The report said: “People were not always cared for in a way which maintained their dignity. People looked unkempt and had not been supported addressing their personal care needs.

“Incidents where people had sustained serious injuries or had required hospital treatment due to concern had not been reported to the CQC. This is a legal requirement and helps us to monitor events within the home and check that appropriate action had been taken to keep people safe.

“People using the service were not protected from the risk of abuse because the provider had not taken reasonable steps to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent abuse from happening.”

The CQC also discovered that some staff had been offered employment even though they had submitted incomplete application forms. Recruiters were failing to explore gaps in their work history and interview records had been kept failing to record the candidates full names, although checks had been carried out with the Disclosure and Baring scheme.

Inspectors also found that there were not enough skilled or experienced staff to care for the 45 residents with a number of positions vacant.

Brian Vincent, Managing Director of Eldercare, said: "Eldercare has, for some time now, been working across the group to make changes to our care practices and service.

"In seeking to ensure systems and standards would be sufficiently robust we made a number of changes to our management structure during the past six months.

"This has permitted our group to begin to implement revised operating systems which are already showing a marked improvement in standards and customer experiences.

"This has been evidenced already elsewhere in the group and we are working closely with CQC and RMBC contract teams to continue to embed the changes already made at this home.

"We are confident that, as part of this process, Parklands will emerge as a centre of excellence in the provision of specialist Mental Health care and re-ablement services.

"We recently appointed Sean O'Hanrahan to our senior management team to implement changes to our service.

"With many modifications already well underway we are confident that Parklands has a positive future.

"Our employees fully support the changes we have made and we are investing in training and upskilling of all service areas to ensure lasting improvement."