Bricket Wood care home rated inadequate after surprise inspection

A care home in Bricket Wood has been given an overall rating of inadequate after an inspection revealed failings across the board.

After HSN Care at The Kestrels in Bricket Wood received a surprise CQC inspection in early August, the 12-person residency was rated inadequate for both safety and leadership, and requires improvement for effectiveness, caring, and responsiveness.

Inspectors turned their attention to the care home this summer after concerns were raised by residents’ families.

The report states: “People were not consistently supported in a safe manner. Staff were not consistently aware of how to mitigate some risks to people’s well-being.

“Staff were not aware of how or when to report concerns to people’s safety and not all staff were able to describe how they would identify when a person was at risk of harm or abuse.

“Lessons learned were not shared to reduce the likelihood of people experiencing harm of poor care. People were not consistently supported by sufficient numbers of staff, although staff recruited were of good character.

“People’s medicines were not managed or administered safely. Although people lived in a clean environment, care practises left people at risk of cross contamination.”

Employee experience was also highlighted as deficient, leaving staff untrained to handle problems such as dysphagia, risk of choking, autism or other complex health conditions.

It was noted that managers dictated menu choices regardless of the residents’ preferences.

The inspector said resident’s dignity was undermined, highlighting one example of a person who likes crawling: “All of the other staff [bar one] who greeted this person walked past and rubbed their hand through the person’s hair, gave it a rub and little shake and said, ‘How are you [name of the person]. Good boy!’. This was not a dignified interaction.”

They gave another example: “Staff placed clothes protectors on people without explaining what they were doing and then pushed food into people’s mouth with no interaction until they finished their breakfast.

“One person was seen to have their cereal dropping from their mouth onto their clothes protector. Staff were seen to scoop this back onto the spoon and give it to the person once again.”

HSN Care Bricket Wood had last been assessed in December 2017, and rated requires improvement.

The care home refused to provide a comment when approached by the Herts Advertiser.