Croydon care home shut down by 'concerned' CQC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has taken action to cancel the registration of a Croydon care home, forcing it to close.

Carlton House in Chatsworth Road remained rated 'Inadequate' at its most recent inspection in March 2018, with inspectors finding eight breaches of care regulations.

Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s deputy chief inspector of adult social care, said: “The quality of care at Carlton House fell a long way below the standard expected and we have now used our enforcement powers to cancel its registration.”

According to the CQC report, people’s risk assessments and care plans continued to be out of date, while the provider "failed to report, act upon and investigate some incidents of abuse and neglect."

The environmental risk also remained high. Inspectors found risks relating to excessive hot water in people’s rooms and communal bathrooms, and although the risk had been noted, action had not been taken to keep people safe.

Inspectors found the service was "not clean as people's rooms were dirty and in need of essential maintenance". There were no records of cleaning schedules for people's rooms and tasks were allocated to staff verbally so the provider was unable to evidence how they monitored the hygiene and cleanliness of the service.

There continued to be issues with people's medicine records and healthcare needs. When people’s health needs changed these were not always acted on, and when healthcare professionals gave advice, this was not always followed.

Carlton House, which provided housing and personal support for up to 15 adults who have a range of needs including mental health and learning disabilities, failed to make sufficient improvements to change the rating or meet the regulations.

The report said: "The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this time frame. If not enough improvement is made within this time frame so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve."

To view the CQC report go to: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-152502370