Care home that was fined £104,000 for food hygiene offences no longer in 'special measures'

Acorns Care Centre on Parkside in Hindley admitted the offences at Wigan and Leigh Magistrates' Court in June.

It followed an "inadequate" rating in an inspection by healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which was published in January.

The offences included the failure to ensure food was protected against contamination and did not ensure adequate procedures were in place to control pests.

The provider was also prosecuted for failing to ensure food handlers were supervised, instructed and/or trained in food hygiene matters.

The court heard that an inspection by Wigan Council environmental health officers found that there was an infestation of mice in the care home last year.

The kitchen and dining room was closed voluntarily on May 8, 2017 due to the significant risk of contamination of food. The closure was cancelled three days later, allowing the kitchen and dining room to be used again.

But after an unannounced visit on July 10 by CQC inspectors and an announced one three days later, the care home's overall ranking has improved from the category of "inadequate" to "requires improvement" in a report which was published on September 7.

The care home, which had 32 residents at the time of the visits, scored "requires improvement" in the four areas of safety, effectiveness, responsiveness and leadership, and was rated "good" in the category of being caring.

The report said: "Safeguarding processes had been implemented and staff spoke of a transparent culture.

"Medicines were managed safely and changes in the system were being implemented to further support nursing staff.

"The risk of entrapment and skin break down was identified because of unsafe use of equipment.

"Not all aspects of the service were effective. The provider could not demonstrate they were consistently meeting people's hydration needs and records required strengthening.

"Everyone we spoke with thought the staff were kind and caring. Staff supported people in a way that promoted their independence and maintained their privacy and dignity.

"The development of care plans and reviews continued to be nurse led and did not involve people, their families or care staff who were responsible for undertaking most of the day to day care interventions.

"There were activities available which was being reviewed at the time of inspection to ensure a varied programme was being provided that met people's individual interests.

"There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and improvements had been made, however, we found areas of concern that had not been identified through the internal monitoring process.

"Resident, relative and staff meetings were consistently being held to ensure effective communication and feedback was sought to drive improvements.

"We identified breaches of the regulations and found the scope of audits were not wide enough to identify these internally through the consultancy firms audit process.

"Following the inspection, we were provided an update regarding the implementation of further audits to prevent re-occurrence of these issues."

The local authority has expressed its satisfaction with the result of the latest CQC inspection.

Jo Willmott, assistant director for provider management and market development at the council, said: “We work closely with all our care providers and offer support to them with a range of measures where there are concerns about standards.

"We welcome the report and will continue to build on the progress being made by the provider.”

There was no registered manager at the care home at the time of the inspection.

Specialist care home transformation company Caresolve was appointed in January to work with the site's owner to make improvements.

Operations director at Caresolve, James Parkin, said: “Further to the recently published CQC report, Caresolve welcomes the improvement in rating from ‘inadequate’ to ‘requires improvement’ at Acorns Care Centre as it recognises the hard work of the staff and the significant progress achieved in the relatively short period of time we have been involved at the home.

“We also fully appreciate however, that there remains much work still to be done for the home to reach the standards that we at Caresolve expect of all homes we are engaged at, and for the regulatory standards as set out by CQC to be fully adhered to.

"We will be continuing our work with the home over the coming months.”