In its report published on January 18, the CQC said the nursing home ‘required improvement’ in being effective, caring and responsive, while being ‘inadequate’ in providing a safe and well-led service. A Ladymead Care Home spokesperson said the nursing home has acknowledged the poor rating and is working hard to improve the service. The CQC said Ladymead Care Home provides nursing and residential care for up to 27 people over the age of 65. People living at the service have health conditions that include dementia, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, heart and respiratory failure and other age-related issues. In the report’s overall summary the CQC said people using the service were ‘not always protected from risk of abuse’ and that ‘people had been deprived or their liberty without having their mental capacity robustly assessed’. They also said people’s associated health risks were not appropriately assessed, while care planning was not ‘person centred’ and ‘did not always consider people’s dignity and health needs’. In the report’s safety section the CQC said that risks from equipment like bed rails had not been assessed and that ‘guidance for staff for people living with diabetes was confusing’. The service had a high reliance on agency staff, the CQC said in its summary, adding that without clear guidance from care records, agency staff were ‘unable to provide a continuity of care to people’. “People did not always receive their medicines in a timely way and in accordance to best practice,” the report said. It went on to say that people were not always protected from getting Covid-19 and that visiting professionals and agency care staff members were not always asked to prove their vaccination status or provide proof of a negative lateral flow test. The report also said: “People were not always 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 CQC explained that people had access to health care services and that staff supported them to attend appointments. But they also said professional guidance ‘had not always been recorded in people’s care documentation’. However, the CQC added that staff were seen being kind and considerate to those using the service and that staff liked working with the people living there. The CQC said some people, relatives and staff commented on the high turnover of management and gave ‘mixed feedback’ about the leadership and management as well. In the ‘well led’ section of the report the CQC said: “The provider did not regularly visit the service, which impacted on the oversight and governance of the service.” “There was no clear direction from the provider as to what was required of the manager and deputy manager to drive service improvements,” they added. This section of the report also said medicines ‘were not always stored or recorded appropriately in line with best practice’ and that ‘the monitoring and ordering process for medicines was not robust’. Ladymead’s previous rating was ‘requires improvement’, which was published on April 23 last year. The CQC said there were ‘multiple breaches of regulation’ seen in the last inspection and the provider completed an action plan to show what they would do to improve. “At this inspection enough improvement had not been made,” said the CQC, adding that Ladymead Care Home is now in ‘special measures’. “This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within six months to check for significant improvements,” they said. The CQC said they will take action if the provider has not made enough improvements within this time frame, which could mean preventing them from operating the service. A spokesperson from Ladymead Care Home said: “We acknowledge the poor rating achieved at the last CQC inspection and are sorry this happened. “We have been working hard to make improvements at Ladymead Care Home over the past year but have been badly affected by COVID restrictions and the unexpected resignation of the previous manager. “We have now appointed a new management team supported by an outside consultant and endeavour to continue to improve care at Ladymead and attain an better CQC rating.” To read the full report visit www.cqc.org.uk.