Care home's safety rated as inadequate as inspectors find medical conditions not treated properly

Oaklands Care Home, in Wartell Bank, Kingswinford, did not act on recommendations made in an earlier inspection, said the CQC, which downgraded its safety rating from Requires Improvement to Inadequate.

During the earlier inspection in October, Oaklands was rated Good in the categories of effectiveness, care and responsiveness but Requires Improvement for leadership and safety. The CQC went back in May to see if staff had followed up its advice but found that they had not.

A new report, published this week, states: "We found that the appropriate action had not been taken to ensure that effective medicines management was in place.

"The provider had failed to protect people from the risks related to medicines.

"We have revised the rating for safe from requires improvement to inadequate.

"This is because the provider had failed to make and/or sustain the required improvements to meet the requirements of the law in relation to safe care and treatment."

Inspectors looked at nine medicine administration records and found 'people's medical conditions were not being treated appropriately by the use of their medicines'.

Concerns were also raised that one person was prescribed a short course of antibiotics by their doctor which could have interacted with their existing medicines and led to 'serious side effects'.

The care home should have stopped the existing medicine while the antibiotic course lasted, but failed to do so.

"We spoke to the registered manager who said she was aware of the interaction between these two medicines," the CQC said.

"However, no measures had been put in place to ensure that staff stopped the person's one particular long-term medicine to avoid the person experiencing any serious consequences.

"The registered manager told us she had not received any reports of the person experiencing any ill effects."

The report also stated: "People requiring medicines to be administered directly into their stomach via a tube, were not receiving them safely.

"The necessary guidance for staff in respect of medicines that were administered through this route was not in place."

Medicines were found to be stored securely and at the right temperature, to maintain their effectiveness.