Norton Lodge Care Home has been placed in special measures due to serious concerns raised by inspectors about resident safety and care quality
Runcorn: Norton Lodge Care Home is in hot water after some pretty alarming inspections. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) checked things out last October and November and found some serious issues.
Inspectors noticed some residents getting into fights without any staff around to help. There were also awful smells and a leak in one resident’s room that had been ignored for three months. Not cool, right?
This place is supposed to care for older adults, including those with dementia. At the time of the inspection, there were 30 residents living there. The CQC was following up on some earlier concerns about safety and how the home was being run.
After the inspection, the home’s ratings took a nosedive. It went from needing improvement to being rated inadequate. Areas like caring and responsiveness dropped from good to just okay, while effective care was also rated as needing improvement.
Now, the home is in special measures, meaning the CQC will keep a close eye on it to ensure residents are safe and that improvements are made. They’re serious about protecting people.
Karen Knapton from the CQC said they were really worried about the lack of strong leadership at the home. There just weren’t enough processes in place to make sure staff could provide safe care.
Some issues that had been flagged before still weren’t fixed. For instance, there weren’t enough staff to keep residents safe. Inspectors saw a near-fall incident and fights between residents without anyone around to help.
It’s also concerning that a leak in one resident’s room was only fixed after inspectors pointed it out. Staff even told another resident not to use their sink because the water was too hot. Yikes!
With not enough cleaning staff, the place was dirty and had some pretty unpleasant smells. The CQC has told the leaders they need to make quick and ongoing improvements, and they’ll be back to check on things.
Here’s a quick rundown of what the inspectors found: there weren’t enough cleaning staff, accidents weren’t being used to learn from mistakes, and some residents weren’t getting the right diets. Staff deployment was also a mess, especially at night.
While residents said the staff were lovely, they felt their needs weren’t being met quickly enough. Plus, many residents and their families felt left out of their care plans, which should be personalized.
There was hardly any interaction between staff and residents, and the home lacked activities to keep people engaged and happy. It’s a tough situation, and hopefully, things will turn around soon.
