Woman 'crying with hunger' at Flintshire care home

New admissions to a Flintshire care home were stopped after inspectors found 11 breaches of regulations, according to an inspection report.

One resident at Allerton Lodge Care Home in Brynford, near Holywell had not received prescribed medication for 17 days, the Care and Social Services Inspectorate for Wales report said.

Another resident was seen crying because she was so hungry.

Fatima Akhtar, who said she was the owner, said she had taken action.

Allerton Lodge, owned by Deen Care Ltd, is registered to accommodate 20 people, including nine with dementia, but it emerged the staff had not been trained to care for such cases.

The inspection report also found food intended for residents went missing and financial abuse was also suspected, but no action taken by the person in charge.

Bedclothes were said to be "dirty, stained and threadbare", and when fire officers were called in they found four serious issues of concern.

The inspectors visited the home on three days in November and once in December.

Weight loss

The report, which has only just been published, stated: "We saw several events relating to people's well-being had happened but had not been reported to the local safeguarding team or CSSIW.

"These included medication errors, alleged financial irregularities with people's personal monies and staff misconduct towards people living at the home.

"Measures are not in place to make sure people are safe and allegations of abuse are not always acted on by the person in charge and responsible individual."

Records showed that several people had been losing weight but no advice had been sought from healthcare professionals and measures to reduce weight loss were not in place.

Other issues highlighted in the report included unsafe management of medicines, inadequate infection control and lack of appropriate training and supervision of staff.

'Working on improving'

The manager at the time of the December visit told inspectors she did not know how to report allegations of abuse to the local safeguarding team.

"The impact on people is they are at risk of continued harm and financial abuse because of delays in addressing issues and reporting these to external agencies," the report said.

Responding, Ms Akhtar said: "I took action on the findings of the report straight away and continue to work on improving.

"We had another inspection on 6 February which should be published anytime soon and shows that improvements have been made and registration restrictions were removed.

"We continue with ongoing actions and I am residing at the home to ensure standards are maintained."