South Leeds elderly care home told to improve by CQC care bosses

The Care Quality Commission, which inspects care settings, issued Victoria House Residential Home with a “Requires Improvement” rating, following an inspection on July 12.

A report written following the inspection added that the home, which provides accommodation to around 37 people, needed to “strengthen” how it improves its services.

The home’s management said it valued the report, adding that “the few small things they picked up” were “actually resolved that day”.

While the report added staff had correct safeguarding training, there was no record of action taken to avoid accidents happening in the home.

It added several containers of medicine thickener had been left unattended, which could have caused harm to residents.

Having received concerns about the recruitment of staff before the inspection, the report’s author added that steps had been taken to ensure safe recruitment was taking place.

It also added that, while staff wore PPE, some issues had been identified, including dirt behind a toilet and a “rusty microwave”, although these issues were remedied immediately by management.

One resident’s bed had not been safety checked since 2019.

The report added: “Monitoring systems did not show what action had been taken to reduce risks and show continuous learning and improving care.

“Maintenance audits showed that equipment safety checks were out of date, but prompt action was not carried out to ensure checks had been done.

"For example, some equipment had been without a safety check for over five months, we found one bed had not been safety checked since 2019.

"Safety checks are needed in order to verify that lifting equipment and accessories remain safe for use, and to detect and remedy any deterioration in good time.

“We found that whilst there had been medicine checks, these were not sufficiently robust to identify the issues we raised about medicines during the inspection.”

The CQC ruled that the provider had to establish and operate systems to “access, monitor and improve quality and safety” of its services.

Manager of Victoria House Eduard Lavelle said: “We value the Care Quality Commission’s view of how we deliver care and not only recognise but embrace the need to continuously improve our services here at our care home. We have read their report and are thankful that the few small things they picked up on are, not only easily resolved, but were actually resolved that day.

“We worked very hard over the 24 months as a full service team, throughout a national pandemic, to ensure our processes and procedures were robust and that we improved our working practices to meet the Care Quality Commission requirements. All of this we achieved through hard work, regular meetings, staff surveys, family involvement and great teamwork.

“Our residents and staff are at the heart of everything we do and our priority will always be to ensure that their needs are met in a safe and effective manner.”