A care home has been placed in special measures after inspectors found staff failing to wear PPE 'appropriately' - months after more than two dozen of its residents were killed by coronavirus. The Lakes Care Centre was graded as 'inadequate' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), after inspectors found residents could be 'forgotten about' while used incontinence material was seen lying around.
In figures released by the CQC last July, the Dukinfield site had seen the highest number of deaths from coronavirus out of any care home in Tameside, with 27 in the year up to March 2021. But despite the tragedy which had unfolded, inspectors raised a red flag about infection control at The Lakes, with issues about PPE (personal protective equipment) being some of their key concerns.
According to a recently released report, inspectors visited The Lakes unannounced last December 7 and 8, when the care home did not have a manager registered with the CQC. Inspectors spoke to residents, their relatives and members of staff.
The CQC found that residents at The Lakes were 'not safe and at risk of avoidable harm'. This included issues on infection control, with staff 'not always' wearing PPE 'appropriately' - although the majority of staff had completed training about it.
Inspectors also had concerns about the way used equipment was left out at The Lakes before being disposed of. The report said: "For example, we observed used continence products left on people's bedroom floors before being disposed of, and hazardous equipment was not always securely bagged and disposed of in the appropriate bin quickly."
Meanwhile, the CQC says it has 'repeated concerns' about the way medicines are handled at the care home, having raised the same issues at its last three inspections. It found that in the month up to visiting The Lakes, 'several people' did not get their prescribed medicines as stock had not been received in time, while one person was given too much paracetamol which 'placed them at unnecessary risk'.
Inspectors found that there were not enough staff to meet people's needs during the inspection, with 'several people' saying they had 'not had a bath or shower recently'. Staff were described as being very busy and not always able to provide activities for those living at The Lakes, while the report quotes one resident as saying: "Sometimes I have to wait five or 10 minutes [for assistance], sometimes I'm forgotten about."
The CQC also raised concerns around safeguarding and certain protocols used to make sure services met the needs of residents. Inspectors criticised the efforts made to ensure residents maintained a balanced diet, while some people living at the facility had complaints about the food on offer.
One resident told the CQC: "If I don't like it, I don't eat it. There's no choice … I do get a little hungry in my tummy." Another resident told inspectors: "It's terrible food, it really is."
The Lakes was one of eight care homes across Greater Manchester which saw at least 20 residents die from Covid in the first year of the pandemic. All eight of those facilities have been inspected by the CQC since the pandemic began, and The Lakes was the only one of those facilities where inspectors raised concerns about PPE not being worn appropriately.
At the only other care home from those eight to be placed into special measures - Burrswood in Bury - inspectors still said they felt assured about staff's use of PPE, unlike at The Lakes. The CQC says it did not receive an action plan on how failings would be addressed after the last inspection before December, while a number of issues found had previously been highlighted by inspectors.
Simon Buxton, manager at The Lakes, told the Manchester Evening News he joined the care home in January after the CQC's inspection took place. He insisted he was working to 'make the changes necessary to take the home where it needs to be' and is hopeful a new inspection will take place soon.
Mr Buxton said: "Since then what we have done is, working closely with Tameside Council, we have put together a really robust action plan which we have been working through. A lot of problems have been quite historical at The Lakes, as you will see from previous CQC inspections, there have been a few issues raised a number of times.
"We have been making sure we've got appropriate staffing, that medicine management has been worked on, and we have come a really long way in a really short time. We've had more communication with relatives, that was not happening before.
"It's something we take very, very seriously, from a business perspective but also for the people that live there. We wanted to make these changes to get it right for them.
"We are now at a point where we are requesting a re-inspection from the CQC because where we are now is a different place from where we were in December. We want that rating changed because there is no way The Lakes is an inadequate service now."
