A DAMNING report has revealed a worrying catalogue of failures at a Bradford care home - and a lack of improvement in “significant shortfalls” - just months after it was rated ‘inadequate’. 

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Southfield Care Home, Belton Close, Great Horton, on two dates in March and April, to find it was still in breach of regulations after initially being plunged into special measures back in January. 

A manager was not in place at the time of the inspection, but the home said it is now working to resolve “everything” raised.

Among the concerns raised on their visit, inspectors said they saw an incident where two people became distressed and ended up hitting each other, with no staff present to intervene; one resident who walked around the dining area “repeatedly taking food from other people’s meals”; a clinical waste bin overflowing on both days of the inspection and “multiple reports” of people having injuries when the cause was unknown, with “no evidence of a follow-up investigation or a referral to the relevant safeguarding authority”.

The report said: “The last rating for this service was ‘inadequate’. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection not enough improvement had been made and the provider was still in breach of regulations.”

Inspectors said safe staffing levels were not maintained. The report said: “We observed people’s needs were not being met, altercations between people, and people being left on their own for significant periods of time.”

It highlighted: “We observed a safeguarding event between two people. There was a physical altercation and this resulted in both people becoming distressed and hitting each other.

“There were no staff present to offer support and intervene. We informed the deputy manager about the event but over the course of the day we observed the two people were left together in an area without any staff supervision.”

They said they saw one person who was repeatedly taking food from other people’s meals - but staff were not available to assist or intervene.

Inspectors also said building checks were not robust, maintenance issues were not followed up properly, PPE was not consistently worn by staff and there was “multiple occasions” where they were not wearing face masks properly.  

They also found 17 members of staff had not received any safeguarding training - and other staff training was out of date - while safe recruitment practices were said to have not been followed.

The report added: “Records showed potential incidents of abuse and allegations of abuse had occurred but were not routinely referred to the local safeguarding authority. Unexplained injuries were not investigated to establish if there were signs of abuse. This meant were not assured service users were protected from the risk of injury or harm from abuse.”

After observing two people hitting each other, inspectors said they found no other evidence people had been harmed, but that systems were either not in place or robust enough that people were protected from abuse and neglect

Inspectors said the “significant shortfalls” identified at the last inspection had not been addressed.  They met with the provider post-inspection and said: “We discussed our concerns about the staffing levels and shortfalls in infection prevention and control practises.

The provider sent us an action plan and assured us they would increase staffing levels immediately and take action to mitigate infection control risks.”

Muzzmah Naqvi, who will be registering as the home’s new manager said: “We are looking at everything that has been brought up and we are resolving everything.”

She added that the home is working with the CQC to make sure things improve back to the ‘good’ rating and said the home wanted assure families that residents are safe.