Wigan care home facing closure after inadequate rating

Primrose Villa Care Home, Preston Road, received an ‘inadequate’ rating from the Care Quality Commission – the lowest score available.

In the report, the CQC criticised the Standish care home for failing to notify them of a serious injury that had been sustained by a resident two weeks prior to inspection.

Inspectors also uncovered six breaches of the regulations of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. They say that if there is not sufficient improvement over the next year they will consider shutting the home.

The CQC also found that staffing levels were insufficient, with only two care staff on duty at weekends.

Other shock findings included peeling wallpaper in one bedroom and rotten window frames in the first floor bathroom

Medicines not being managed safely

No process to ensure adequate staffing levels were in place

A resident being served a liquidised meal of pie, peas and gravy blended into one.

The report also highlighted how records of meals were not kept correctly to ensure residents at risk of malnutrition were promptly identified.

The report reads: “We found accurate records of food and fluid intake were not being kept for people who had been identified as being at risk of malnutrition. The amounts of fluid and food were not recorded and the consistency of any meal provided was also frequently not recorded.”

The report went: “We observed one person was struggling to stand up from their chair, while another person was looking around and apparently indicating they required the toilet.

“No staff were present in the lounge at this time. When staff did arrive they assisted one person to the toilet [and] told the person who had been trying to mobilise to ‘sit down’. The room was then left unsupervised again.”

Inspectors were concerned about an unsafe bathroom window, and several window restrictors which failed to operate correctly, leaving residents at risk.

The report also slammed Primrose Villa staff for the missed administration of medicines.

Staff were reportedly unaware that residents had missed their night time medicines, while there was a lack of information on dosages available for workers.

Primrose Villa has confirmed it is appealing the report, only upholding the complaint regarding the missed administration of medicines.

Registered manager Michael Ryan said: “This is the first time in 10 years that we’ve had a disappointing inspection.

“All the issues that were identified in it have been rectified and we have a good caring service.”

Mr Ryan confirmed that Primrose Villa will recruit one more member of staff for weekends, but this has not yet been done.

He says that window locks have all been replaced, and that the CQC have been sent evidence of this.

On the mismanagement of medicine, he said the care home contacted a GP, who informed the CQC that the service user identified was not at risk.

He also suggested that Primrose Villa did not need to send a statutory notification to the CQC over the reported serious injury, as the person involved had only been treated as a ‘precaution’.

However, the report states that Mr Ryan told the inspector he believed the CQC had received a statutory notification, and that the lack of reporting must have been an ‘oversight’.

Meanwhile, the CQC has also criticised two more Wigan care homes in the past fortnight.

St George’s, Windsor Street, and Mahogany Care Home, Marsden Street, have both received a ‘requires improvement’ rating following their latest inspections.