Home Sittingbourne News Article
Newington Court care home still failing residents after second Care Quality Commission inspection in seven months
00:01, 01 September 2016
A nursing home that was told by health inspectors to improve its standards has once again been found to be failing its residents.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out an unannounced inspection of Newington Court, which provides care for people, including those with dementia.
Its team considered whether it was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led and was found to require improvement in each area, apart from caring, which was said to be good.
The home, in Keycol Hill, is run by Barchester Healthcare Homes. It had been inspected in October 2015 when five breaches of the Health and Social Care Act were reported.
Shortcomings included failure to manage medicines effectively, being under-staffed and staff not receiving the necessary training.
The CQC issued warning notices ordering that improvements had to be made by December this year but Barchester produced an action plan and said it would comply with the necessary standards by May.
To check on progress, the CQC carried out a further inspection on May 23 and the resulting report was published earlier this month.
It said improvements had been made but the home was still “breaching regulations relating to fundamental standards of care”.
The CQC found Barchester was not ensuring people received appropriate care to meet their needs, not handling complaints properly, not securely maintaining records, not carrying out effective recruitment of staff, and was not deploying enough staff in all areas of the home.
The one area rated good was “caring” as people were being treated with dignity and respect, were consulted on how they wanted their care delivered and relatives could visit at any reasonable time.
Barchester said it was glad the CQC had recognised it had made improvements and would take on board the feedback.
A spokesman said: “Training has already been put in place and is continuing.
“The team at the home is caring and dedicated and we would like to reassure every one of our continuing commitment to delivering improvement and high quality care."
