Medication given illegally at Wigan care home

Dean Wood Manor in Orrell was criticised by the Care Quality Commission following a review earlier this year for continuing to breach health and care regulations.

The Spring Road home, which cares for dementia patients, was pulled up in the recent report for illegally distributing medication to two patients. A CQC inspector wrote: “A third and fourth person had fluid thickener to aid swallowing however this had not been prescribed for them and should not have been used for them.

“The nurses were using another person’s fluid thickener, which is not legal.”

Concerns were also raised about the safety of medication administration records, some of which were found to be only partially completed or not at all.

An example given by inspectors explained how staff had failed to record what they did when a patient was found to have low blood sugar levels.

The report said: “A person’s blood sugar should be taken before administering insulin to ensure their blood sugars do not go too low, as this increases the risk of harm. The record of recording blood sugar before administration was not fully recorded.”

The home has previously come under fire from the CQC in a 2017 inspection, which found that it required improvements in four of the five key assessment areas. In 2016 it was found to be inadequate on two separate occasions and was put in special measures.

Since then the home has been slowly making improvements, with two of the five key indicators now classed as “good”. Management at Dean Wood will now have to make steps to comply with all health and care regulations.