Care home breached safety and leadership rules

A care home found to be in breach of safety and governance regulations has been told to improve by a watchdog.

Westwinds Residential Care in Workington - a home for 14 elderly adults - was given an overall rating of requires improvement by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after an inspection in July.

The report highlighted concerns over the safe management of medicines and risk of infections spreading.

The home said it had recently been taken over, and its manager had only been in post for four months at the time of the inspection. It also said it had since put new systems in place.

Care homes are judged across five criteria and inspectors said safety and leadership "required improvement" but the home was judged "good" in caring, responsive and effectiveness categories.

However, the report revealed that medicines were not always managed safely and the systems to assess and manage the quality and safety of the service were not always effective.

The report said the home dealt with concerns about safety and took action to keep people safe and safeguarding procedures were followed when required.

Inspectors said staff treated people with kindness and respected them as individuals while staff promoted people's independence and there was a variety of activities to take part in at the home.

A spokesperson for Westwinds Residential Care said while the team was "obviously disappointed with the new rating, CQC did take into consideration that the home had recently been taken over by a new provider at the time of the visit".

It said new robust systems were already in place and it was "confident this will be evidenced in the next inspection".

"Both residents and their relatives were consulted during the inspection, and we received lots of positive comments about the improvements which have already been made to the service," the home added.

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