A CARE village has been criticised following a resident's death and ordered to improve.

A health care watchdog has carried out an inspection of Belong Atherton after attending an inquest into the resident's death and given it an overall rating of requires improvement.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors also ruled that both safety and leadership at the Mealhouse Lane village needs to improve.

But they gave Belong Atherton, part of the CLS Group, a good rating in terms of how effective, caring and responsive the service is for its elderly residents, who require 24-hour care and support.

The inspection report says: “During the inquest there was some ambiguity between staff regarding the person's dietary needs.

“The person had experienced two significant choking incidents prior to their death and the person's GP and speech and language therapy (SALT) were not made aware of these incidents, which meant the person had not received an appropriate assessment of their swallowing to determine their dietary needs.”

The coroner requested staff reassess all residents’ risk of choking with immediate effect and where necessary refer them to speech and language therapy.

When inspecting the community care home in December and January the CQC found that dysphagia training, which helps with swallowing food, had been given to 104 staff members.

However the CQC inspection report, which was published on March 16, concluded the ‘service was not consistently safe’.

It says: “We found people were not always protected against the risk associated with an 'unsafe swallow' because life plans were not updated timely to provide the required guidance to staff to mitigate the risks.

“At our first inspection visit we found medicine files were not organised and did not contain all the required information to manage people's medicines safely.”

After an unannounced inspection on December 19 the CQC raised two safeguarding alerts with Wigan Council and wrote to the service provider about its concerns.

When inspectors returned for an announced visit on January 4 the issues had been resolved.

Inspectors also found that leadership of the care village – which has around 70 residents, with many suffering from dementia – requires improvement.

The report says: “The service was not consistently well-led.

“The registered manager had failed to provide quality assurance or oversight of the service.

“We found the registered manager had systems in place to promote their visibility but we received mixed responses from people, their relatives and staff regarding whether management were approachable and visible within the service.”

Other aspects of the care village were praised in the report.

“Supervision was conducted regularly and staff received an annual appraisal of their work," it says.

“People's privacy and dignity was maintained and people were provided care and support in line with their wishes and preferences.

“Residents said their independence was promoted and staff encouraged them to do things for themselves.

“We saw people were treated with kindness and compassion.

“Staff spoke fondly of people and we saw they were responsive to people's needs.

“Their life history was captured, initial assessments were conducted and regular reviews undertaken.

“The complaints procedure was outlined in the service user guide and we saw the service maintained a complaints log.

“These evidenced complaints were followed up appropriately and in the time frame specified.”

Belong Atherton opened in 2011 and was rated good overall with outstanding leadership after its last inspection in March 2015.

General manager Julie Washington said: “We are committed to providing high quality support to all customers and have a strong track record in maximising independence and wellbeing for our residents, who consistently rate us highly in quality surveys.

“Although the latest inspection outcome was of course disappointing it was heartening to read the CQC’s positive observations on the care and attentiveness shown by staff and the high level of dignity and respect that underpins the delivery of that care.

“We will continue to be vigilant and reassess our practices and procedures to ensure that we operate to best practice standards and that we continue to improve our services.”