Northamptonshire nursing home moves out of special measures and avoids closure

Brackley Lodge Nursing Home in Bridge Street, Brackley, was placed in special measures in April 2015 and warned it could close if sufficient improvement was not made in six months.

The Care Quality Commission have now conducted a second comprehensive inspection, which they have said shows progress.

A spokesman for the CQC said: “It is clear that the home has made a lot of improvement although there are some areas where some things still need to be addressed.”

The new report shows three domains are rated as ‘requires improvement’ and two as ‘good’.

The spokesman said: “This gives an overall rating of ‘requires improvement’ and, as no domain remains ‘inadequate’, this means that we should move the service out of special measures.”

Earlier this year the CQC found that there were several potentially worrying breaches of good care standards:

- people were not being protected from abuse at the home

-staff recruitment processes were not sufficiently robust and people were being cared for by staff without the right training or skills to meet the needs of people at the home,

- safeguarding processes needed strengthening and staff did not always understand their role and responsibilities with regard to protecting people from harm.

-reasons for injuries and bruising were not always understood and notifications to the relevant authorities were not consistently made.

-Medicines were not always safely or appropriately managed and the risks to people at the home were not continually assessed or managed.

-people’s nutritional needs were not always known to staff and people were not always offered support to eat and drink.

- people’s dignity and respect was not adequately protected and some people were not being bathed or showered for long periods of time.

Since the initial inspection, a new manager and assistant manager have been appointed.