CQC rating for Glebe House
Monday 21st of November 2022Avenues is fulfilling a detailed action plan to improve its service at Glebe House in London after its latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.
The residential care home, which specialises in supporting people with mental health conditions, was rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ in two out of five inspection areas (‘Safe’ and ‘Well-led’) following the CQC visit in July 2022.
The service has previously been rated as ‘Good’, and Avenues has an organisational commitment that all its services maintain this or ‘Outstanding’ CQC ratings.
Inspectors found that “Medicines were not always managed safely. We found gaps in people’s medicine administration records. Protocols for staff to follow when people were prescribed to take medicines as and when required, were incorrect in one instance and missing in another. The provider had not realised there were concerns with medicines management as their quality assurance systems had not identified the issues we found.”
Immediately after the inspection, we developed and implemented an action plan to put this right and improve our medication management. We have now:
- Addressed this CQC outcome with our staff team.
- Investigated the medication error in line with our disciplinary procedures and applied the appropriate sanction.
- Sought advice from the GP who confirmed that the three-day delay in trial medication did not have any long-term effect on the person we support.
- Updated our local medication policy and made improvements to our medication stock control processes and procedures.
- Strengthened our medication administration and record-keeping processes, ensuring nurse and shift leaders check and verify that everyone has received their medication at shift hand over.
- Added two additional, random weekly medication audits, on top of the weekly check already in place.
- Put additional measures in place to ensure that effective medication management is sustained through weekly and monthly audits, observations and random spot checks by the Service Manager and Assistant Service Manager; plus random medication administration record (MAR sheet) and controlled drugs checks by the Senior Operations Manager.
The inspection findings weren’t all negative, however. The CQC found that:
- “People were kept safe. There were systems in place to help protect people from abuse. People’s risks were assessed and monitored. There were enough staff working at the service and recruitment processes were robust.”
- “A positive person-centred culture was promoted… Care plans were person-centred, and staff worked to meet individual needs, in line with people’s preferences and the provider’s policies.”
- “People and staff were able to be engaged and involved with decisions that affected the outcomes of the service.”
- “The service worked with other agencies to the benefit of people using the service.”
Michael Gray, Regional Director Avenues London said, “We are disappointed that our medication management processes at Glebe House were found to be wanting at the time of the inspection. I am confident that the prompt action we’ve since taken has addressed this fully, making Glebe House a more robust, safe and effective service. I’m determined that we learn from this inspection and demonstrate consistently the high quality service that we expect across all areas of practice.”
You can access the full report on the CQC website.
If you have a concern, complaint or compliment about our services, you can email us directly, (see easy read complaint guidance), or call us on 0300 323 0405. We aim to answer email enquiries within three working days.
Read our detailed CCC procedure