The Church Road home was recently rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after two inspections in the spring found serious issues with the personal care provided for the 13 residents living there at the time. 

Primos Care Limited took over the home in October 2023 and following the inspections, it’s ratings for how safe and well-led it was fell from good to inadequate, with its effective, caring and responsive rating falling to requires improvement.

A statement by CQC said: “We have taken further action against the provider, which will be reported on when we are legally able to do so,” and added that “the home will now be kept under close review “to keep people safe and it will be monitored to check that sufficient improvements have been made”.

Hazel Roberts, CQC deputy director of operations in the east of England, said: “When we visited Oaklands Care Home, we found a home that wasn’t providing safe or effective care, largely due to poor management. We found people’s safety was being compromised because leaders hadn’t given staff the training or support they needed to provide safe care. For example, only five of the 14 care staff supporting people who were at risk of choking had completed the relevant training to reduce people’s risk of choking.”

She went on: “The service wasn’t always providing person-centred care that met people’s needs. People told us staff didn’t always include them in discussions about their care and support arrangements or seek their consent, and it left them feeling not listened to. We also saw this reflected in people’s care plans which didn’t fully reflect their physical, mental, emotional, and social needs, including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

“The home wasn’t doing enough to identify and manage risks to people’s safety and welfare. We saw staff weren’t being supported to manage people’s medications safely or compassionately with instances of people receiving the wrong medicine at the wrong time, and no guidance on how to give medicines to support people experiencing distress or anxiety.

“Our inspectors found people weren’t always protected from the risk of infection. During our visit, we saw the kitchen was dirty with out of date foods and evidence of cross contamination in the fridge. There was also debris from refurbishment on the floor and walkways. The home did tell us they had plans to refurbish the kitchen and provided us with an action plan on how they were going to improve these issues.

“We have told the provider they need to make immediate and widespread improvements. We’ve put the home in special measures to keep people safe while these improvements are being made. If sufficient progress hasn’t been made, we will not hesitate to take further action to ensure people’s safety and wellbeing.”   

According to the statement, inspectors also found:

• People weren’t supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff didn’t support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests
• The manager didn’t have a good understanding of safeguarding. They didn’t know how to make a safeguarding referral to the local authority or identify what needs to be reported. The provider hadn’t made statutory notifications to CQC as required by law
• At the time of the assessment, the manager wasn’t registered with CQC. The manager was new in post and lacked the knowledge and skills to ensure people received safe care and treatment
• People couldn’t access parts of the environment due to ongoing refurbishment work. People didn’t have a range of social and leisure activities to meet their needs, choices and preferences.

However, residents said enjoyed the food and told the CQC that they had a choice of meals. The CQC also reported that the provider was committed to driving improvement at the location and had put an action plan in place

Following a request by Brightlingsea Info, Primos Care issued a statement claiming that the CQC report was “not a true reflection” of the situation at Oaklands, adding: “The report reflects nothing but the damage done by the previous management and staff of Oaklands.”

The full Care Quality Commision report can be found here.