Wakefield’s Brantwood Hall Care Home placed in special measures

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has downgraded the rating for Brantwood Hall Care Home in Wakefield, from good to inadequate and placed it into special measures to protect people, following an inspection in February.

Brantwood Hall Care Home, run by Roseberry Care Centres Wakefield Limited, provides personal care and support for up to 29 people, some of whom are living with dementia.

The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s continual checks on the safety and quality of adult social care services.

During CQC’s inspection, inspectors found breaches of regulation regarding staffing and how the home is managed.

Following this inspection, CQC has downgraded the home's ratings of effective, caring and responsive from good to requires improvement, and the areas of safe and well-led from good to inadequate.

The service has been placed in special measures which involves close monitoring to ensure people are safe while Roseberry Care Centres Wakefield Limited make improvements. Special measures also provides a structured timeframe so services understand when they need to make improvements by, and what action CQC will take if this doesn’t happen.

Victoria Marsden, CQC deputy director of adult social care in north central said: "When we inspected Brantwood Hall, we found failings that were placing people at unnecessary risk of harm. Leaders weren’t managing the service well, meaning people weren’t receiving the safe and person-centred care they deserved.

"Our inspectors saw that leaders weren’t responding to safety incidents to ensure lessons were learned. For example, one person had experienced 30 falls in a year, but leaders had failed to

effectively monitor the situation to ensure improvements were made to help prevent these from re-occurring.

“Leaders also failed to investigate and escalate safeguarding concerns to the local authority to ensure people were living in a safe environment.

"Allegations had been raised with the registered manager in relation to a potential safeguarding concern, but no action had been taken.

“Staff told us they were worried that understaffing meant they couldn’t meet people’s needs properly. They were kind and caring but often had little time to do proper handovers or engage properly with people.

"We observed people waiting for some time for support from staff which caused some people distress.

“We have told leaders where we expect to see rapid, and sustained improvements and will continue to monitor the service closely to keep people safe during this time. We have begun the process of taking regulatory action to protect people further.”

Inspectors found leaders didn’t ensure there were enough suitably skilled staff available to meet people’s needs.

The home didn’t always have the equipment available for people to be safely supported to mobilise.

Staff didn’t ensure there was a continuity of care when people moved between services and didn’t always manage people’s medicines safely.

People’s needs weren’t always assessed prior to being admitted to the service meaning staff had little understanding of their specific needs.

Staff didn’t always have time to build close relationships with people meaning they were at risk of loneliness and boredom.

Staff didn’t always tailor people’s care plans to their individual needs or consider their aspirations, culture, unique backgrounds and protected characteristics

A spokesperson for Brantwood Hall Care Home said: “We take all feedback from the Care Quality Commission extremely seriously,however, on this occasion, we do not agree with their assessment of our home.

"As the report acknowledges, our hardworking staff are kind and caring, with residents and their relatives consistently saying they are treated with respect and dignity.

“We ensure that residents are always closely monitored, and where action is required, it is taken in close cooperation with our healthcare partners. We have all necessary equipment on site and available for our staff to use as needed.

“Nevertheless, we believe in the importance of continual improvement, and where lessons can be learned, they have been applied. Action taken since the inspection includes a comprehensive review of our admission process and medicine management system.

“We remain fully committed to delivering the highest quality of care to our residents and we look forward to welcoming the CQC back so they can see the improvements that have been made.”