A care home has been put into special measures after staff prevented people from leaving. Users were deprived of going outside when they wanted, a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found.
The home, rated 'inadequate', provides personal care for up to 46 people, including elderly individuals, people living with dementia, and people with mental health needs. At the time of the inspection, there were 45 people using the service.
The inspectors said they had seen "widespread and significant shortfalls" in the care home and stated "staff did not always demonstrate a clear awareness of their role to provide person-centred care". Cherry Lodge, a Birmingham care home run by Care First Class (UK) Limited, was inspected last November, but the report was published last Friday, reports BirminghamLive.
The latest inspection was carried out after concerns over the information inspectors held about the care home. During their visit, inspectors identified "further concerns relating to the care and support people were receiving" and widened the scope of the inspection.
Inspectors found there was a blanket restriction of all residents from going outside. Nobody at the care home was "made aware of the key codes that allowed their entrance to and exit from the home".
One person told inspectors: "You can't go out unless you've got your relations with you [...] You couldn't just go out to the shops, no, I wish I could." Another person told inspectors it was the "rules" that they could not go out as and when they wished.
"Both people's records stated they had capacity and there was no recorded reason as to why they should be prevented from going out independently and have their liberty restricted in this way," inspectors concluded.
One person escalated their concerns about not being able to go out to the local MP and Birmingham city council. The management team had told the local authority that this person had recently gone out shopping, inspectors reported, but they noted this was not an "adequate response to the person's complaint about going out overall as they wished".
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When the inspectors queried the nominated individual - a person who supervises how regulated activity is managed - they told inspectors they would not share the key codes with people living at the home "because they'll share them out and other people will want to go out".
Other evidence of failures at the care home include one resident who had "appeared to be significantly underweight". Records showed the person had refused multiple meals, but the "risk had not been identified or acted on" by staff.
The staff themselves were found to have placed the care home at significant risk. Inspectors found two staff members only had DBS checks on their records completed by previous employers. Both employees had criminal convictions.
"Despite these records showing both staff members had criminal convictions recorded on their DBS the provider had failed to carry out their own DBS checks, or any risk assessments in relation to these criminal convictions. This failed to protect people in their care as far as possible," the inspectors said.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for the service dropped from requiring improvement to inadequate. The areas of safe and well-led was not rated at their last inspection but in 2019 was rated as requiring improvement. The inspectors have now rated it inadequate.
Inspectors also rated the care home's capacity to care for residents from good to inadequate, while its effectivness remained at requiring improvement.
A spokesperson for Care First Class (UK) Limited said: "We recognise the findings of the CQC report, and have been working hard since the inspection to note the required improvement and ensure the impact is sustained."
