Hill House in Ellington rated inadequate in CQC inspection

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said enforcement action was being taken against Hill House in Ellington after an inspection that took place from March to May. 

It was again rated inadequate overall after inspectors discovered failings in all five key questions including how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led the service was.

In a statement, ADR Care Homes Limited, who run Hill House, said: "We are very disappointed to find ourselves with an unsatisfactory report following the recent inspections."

This inspection was prompted in part due to concerns CQC had around potential risks in the service, and to check on the progress of improvements the care home was told to make following an earlier inspection when it as first  placed into special measures.  

Among a number of findings, the independent body that monitors, inspects and rates health and social care services in England said the provider did not always "mitigate risks to people's health and safety", with residents "at risk from unsafe medicines administration practices". 

Inspectors also found that while staff had training in the Mental Capacity Act, they were unable to tell the CQC what this meant in relation to their job roles. 

The service will remain under close review by CQC to keep people safe whilst this happens.  

The care home has also been referred to local authority’s safeguarding team and enforcement action taken to protect residents, which will be reported on when CQC are legally able to do so.

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the east of England, said:  “It is unacceptable to find that the same level of poor care is still being provided to the people who call Hill House home since our last inspection.

"This is despite us telling leaders where we expected to see rapid and widespread improvements and issuing them with a warning notice to focus their attention in the relevant areas. Leaders have allowed a poor culture to become normalised which was behind a lot of the poor care we saw.  

“Staff didn’t always treat people with dignity and respect. They talked loudly about people’s personal care needs in front of others and used offensive language such as referring to people needing support to eat and drink as feeders instead of by their names.

"Some people told us they didn’t think staff cared about them, and they just wanted to finish their tasks quickly. People also wanted the staff to respect their privacy in ways such as knocking on their bedroom door instead of just walking in.

“Staff weren’t safeguarding people from abuse. For example, a staff member was supporting a person to eat, and continued to put food in their mouth even when they started to choke and cough. We have raised this concern with the local authority safeguarding team.

“Leaders didn’t support staff to learn lessons when things went wrong to prevent them from happening again. For example, someone had a fall and staff supported them back to bed instead of calling a doctor to assess if they were hurt. Leaders didn’t learn from this or take action, and as a result, another similar incident happened.

He added: "People living at Hill House were relying on all staff members to act as their advocates, to help them live their best lives and it is unacceptable the people they relied on were treating them this way."

“All areas of the home including people’s bedrooms were visibly dirty with dust, cobwebs, and mould and dead insects. The kitchen was also dirty and stained, with out of date or unlabelled food items in the fridge putting people’s health at risk.

“We have told leaders where we expect to see immediate and significant improvement and are taking further enforcement action to protect people which we’ll report on when we’re legally able to do so. In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor them closely to make sure people are safe while this happens and won’t hesitate to take further action if this doesn’t happen.”

In their statement, ADR Care Homes Ltd said "the findings of CQC were taken extremely seriously.

"We have raised a comprehensive action plan to address the issues and, consequently, the management team has been changed, with home improvements undertaken", the statement added.

"Local authorities have been very supportive and encouraging in the all the changes and improvements that have been undertaken so far. we continue to have positive weekly meetings with them.

"Please be assured we are continuing to work closely with the local authorities and all parties involved take the safety of our service users at the highest priority."