Home in special measures over 'significant' decline in care

Burrswood Care Home provides personal and nursing care to a maximum of 125 people

A care home has been rated inadequate and placed in special measures after an inspection.

Burrswood Care Home in Bury, Greater Manchester, had a "systemic failure of leadership and management across all areas" according to inspectors.

This had led to "a closed toxic culture which led to poor quality care" the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said.

A spokesperson for the care home said: "As a team we remain committed to our residents, and their families."

The CQC visited the home in August, prompted by the concerns of relatives, local intelligence and the CQC's own risk analysis regarding pressure-wound care, staffing levels, management of falls and leadership.

The home, which is run by Advinia Care Homes Limited, provides personal and nursing care to a maximum of 125 people.

Alison Chilton, the CQC's deputy director of operations in the north of England, said it was "concerning to see such a significant deterioration in the quality of care".

"Leaders need to prioritise making urgent improvements, particularly regarding how the service is run, to ensure people's needs are properly met," she said.

"We identified at least six examples where an incident hadn't been referred to the local authority safeguarding team and the CQC hadn't been notified either."

She said that the choice of activities and opportunities for people to follow their interests was poor. This was despite the provider charging an additional weekly fee for this service, which she said was "totally unacceptable".

The CQC inspection found while some staff were caring and well intentioned, others appeared uninterested.

Inspectors found that the induction, training and development of staff was poor and there was a lack of qualified nursing staff to effectively deliver care to people living with advanced dementia.

It was also found that links with the local community were virtually non-existent.

Special measures means Burrswood Care Home, in Newton Street, will be kept under close review before being re-inspected.

A spokesman for the care home said: "The senior leadership team have already formulated and implemented a robust action plan and we are confident that the service is already feeling the benefit.

"We have long known that the care needs of many residents had increased and we had raised this issue with the local authority to urge them to provide more funding so the appropriate level of care could be provided. Sadly, this was not forthcoming, despite repeated requests. We believe this lack of funding was a contributing factor to this report."

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