Two Northampton care homes under same provider told they ‘require improvement’ in just two weeks

A second Northampton care home under the same provider has been told it ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), despite the provider insisting it has addressed most concerns.

The Highfield care home, run by Mentaur Limited in Abington Avenue, has been told it needs to improve after inspectors raised concerns about unsupervised and untrained staff and out-of-date care plans.

This comes after The Berkeley care home, run by the same provider in Kingsthorpe Road, received the same rating just two weeks ago after inspectors found that medicines were not consistently recorded, untrained staff and lack of risk assessments.

Mentaur Limited was asked by the Chronicle & Echo how they plan to address these concerns and why the quality of their care services are declining.

A spokesperson for the care provider said: “We would like to assure all stakeholders that we are working closely with the CQC and the local authority to address any concerns outlined in this report, most of which have already been resolved.

“As an adult social care provider with a longstanding and excellent reputation, we believe in continuous learning and improvement and processes are being reviewed to ensure consistency in terms of the quality of the services we provide.”

Highfield cares for up to six people with learning disabilities, mental health needs and sensory impairments. Six people were living at the home at the time of the inspection in January.

Other concerns raised about Highfield included residents not receiving support focussed on their quality of life outcomes, staff not feeling supported, no evidence of staff and resident feedback being used to improve the service and governance processes failing to hold staff to account and keep people safe.

The CQC report said: “The lack of consistent leadership has resulted in a decline in the quality and safety of the service.”

Positive points raised about the care home is that medicines were safely managed, residents received “kind and compassionate” care from staff, who used “positive, respectful language” which residents understood and responded well to.

Highfield was previously inspected in February 2018 and it was rated as ‘good’ in all areas, which means that it has now dropped a rating.

Read the full CQC report here.