Fern Court in Gloucester has been downgraded to ‘inadequate’ and placed in special measures by the CQC following an inspection.
The CQC visit came after concerns were raised regarding safety standards and staffing issues at Fern Court, which is operated by New Beginnings. The CQC found that both leadership at the home and safety compliance were inadequate and issued two warning notices. According to the CQC, the home’s manager was unregistered, and the home relied on agency staff. Fern Court now has six months to improve – if it does not, it may be shut down, forcing the home’s dozen residents to seek residential care elsewhere.
According to the CQC’s report: ‘People were not always protected against avoidable harm. Incidents and accidents were not investigated in a robust way and learning from events was not used to prevent recurrence of the same issue.’
The CQC’s head of adult social care inspection, Rebecca Bauers, said: “When we inspected Fern Court, we were concerned the service wasn’t putting people’s care needs first, and sometimes staff didn’t support people in a positive way that promoted their privacy and dignity. Because of this, we felt the service was at risk of developing a closed culture, which is when institutionalised practices are used, increasing people’s dependence on the manager and staff.
“We found some people’s care plans were out of date, or contained contradictory information, and some care plans said that people sometimes showed signs of distress which could be challenging, yet there was no guidance provided to help staff manage this safely with minimal physical intervention. This meant that people were at risk of abuse.
“It was also concerning that the provider had carried out a review of incidents in the home, yet they hadn’t learnt from this and made improvements to prevent them from happening again."
