Care home criticised by inspectors

Inspectors also found leadership at the home to be lacking.

And an 18-page action plan, drawn up by the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, is aiming to solve problems found in April by CQC inspectors – who gave the hospital the second lowest of four possible ratings.

But the owner of the Woodbridge Road centre, Pauline Kent, has criticised the CQC over its inspection and has said a variety of improvements have been made.

“Staff understood the principles of how to “whistle-blow”, but said they did not feel confident in raising their concerns with management”.

But he added: “A key concern has been the safety of care – a failure to learn from mistakes or not having the right number of staff in place at the right time”. There have also been 58 good ratings and one outstanding – these are inspections which have taken place this year.

“There were no regular checks on staff skill and knowledge to ensure they had the required skills to effectively undertake their role”.

Chief executive Aidan Thomas has welcomed the report released today (Tuesday, October 13) and praised the efforts of staff at the Trust which provides mental health, social care, substance misuse, learning disability and community services.

It found even the best services were services struggling to fill vacancies and this was true when it came to NHS hospital trusts.

In the report, inspectors wrote: “The care records we looked at showed that a few risks to people’s health and well-being had been identified”.

But it was rated as good for its effectiveness, care and responsiveness. A shocking 74 per cent were graded either “inadequate” or requiring “improvement” in terms of patient safety. “However, there were areas in medicine where nurse staffing levels were impacting on patient care and treatment, particularly on the elderly care wards”.

“However, these trusts prioritised measure to meet patient demand such as seven-day support”, it said.

Inspectors acknowledged they “saw many examples of staff acting in a caring and thoughtful manner towards people” but felt more could be done.

Hunt, who has made improving safety in the NHS his top priority in the three years he has been in office, said his ambition was still to make the NHS the world’s safest healthcare system.

Mrs Kent said: “Care seems to have gone out of the window”.

A new programme has already been put in place to tackle the main failing of marathon A&E delays caused by patients blocking scarce beds.

Its report said: “Following safety-related incidents, we found robust investigations were not always undertaken to review the root cause of incidents and help prevent re-occurrences”.

Shadow Health Secretary Heidi Alexander said: ” Jeremy Hunt can not keep ignoring serious warnings about unsafe and understaffed hospitals.