Residents moved out as court order closes care home

Eleven frail and elderly residents had to be found new homes last week after the forced closure of their care home.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) was granted a court order to close the privately owned Millfield Lodge Care Home in Gamlingay on Thursday.

The move follows an unannounced visit from the CQC in April this year after welfare concerns were reported to the watchdog.

Although the report found staff to be caring, there were concerns about safety, effectiveness, response to situations and leadership.

One woman, whose father had been at the home for three years, said staff had lost their jobs over the closure.

“The staff there were very good, it was just issues with the care of some people,” said Wendy Thompson.

Clothes would never be my father’s clothes and there were no activities for the patients.”

CQC Inspectors said: “We found that where accidents and incidents occurred, these had not always been included in people’s risk assessments to help reduce the risk of further incidents, including falls.

“Staff were able to tell us, as a result of their safeguarding training, what measures were to be taken to reduce people’s risk of increased anxiety. “However, guidance for staff in people’s care plans about how to manage these risks was limited. We found that there were no recorded details of what support was to be given to reduce people’s anxieties or what individual calming measures worked for people.

“Risk assessments were not always in place for people that needed special diets. The manager told us that one person was having their food liquidised as they were experiencing problems eating food of a normal consistency. However, there was no risk assessment in place identifying the risks to the person or how they should be reduced.”

It continued: “People did not always get the support they needed with eating and drinking. The care plans stated that some people required thickener in their drinks to prevent problems when swallowing. However, we saw during the inspection that one person had not been supported to have the thickener in their drink as stated in their care plan. There was confusion amongst the nursing and care staff about whether the person required thickener in their drink or not.

“Where people required management of their wounds the dates for wound dressing changes had not always occurred on the identified date. We found that some dressings had been changed two days later than the due date. Two of the three people’s records stated that they required to be repositioned every two hours. However, the records showed that the people had been repositioned every four hours. On the second day of the inspection we asked to look at the repositioning records for three people. We found and staff told us that these records had not been completed. The nominated individual told the staff that this was not acceptable.

“We could not be confident that people were receiving the care that they required.

Director of the care home is Anita Ram, aged 67 who has been there since 2004

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire County Council said: “The Care Quality Commission (CQC) took action to close Millfield Lodge last Thursday (August 10). Cambridgeshire County Council has worked with healthcare and local authority partners to make sure that the 11 residents of Millfield Lodge in Gamlingay were found appropriate accommodation which is safe, secure and meets their needs.

“Our first concern is always the wellbeing of older people in Cambridgeshire and while every effort was been made to work with the provider of care at Millfield Lodge to help them make necessary improvements, these improvements were not been made, which resulted in the closure of the home.”

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