Norwich care home placed into special measures after inspectors raise safety fears
Harvey Lane looks after people with learning disabilities
Last updated 29th Dec 2023
A Norwich care home is in special measures after inspectors raised serious safety concerns last month.
Harvey Lane, which looks after people with disabilities, has been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission.
It found safety hazards like chemical products being left out and faulty fire doors.
Inspectors were also unsure people were getting the right support.
The home is run by Consensus Support Services LTD, and has capacity to look after eight autistic people or people with other learning disabilities.
At the time of the inspection six people were using the service.
Rebecca Bauers, CQC’s director for people with a learning disability and autistic people, said:
“When we inspected Harvey Lane, we found poor leadership and inadequate safety measures were putting people at unnecessary risk.
"These core issues were behind much of what we saw on this inspection, and they were significantly impacting the quality of care being provided to people.
“It was worrying that people’s basic needs weren’t being met, in areas like supporting them to eat well. In one case, we saw that someone’s food records showed they’d mainly eaten crisps for nine days and hadn’t had any protein.
"Staff hadn’t recognised the impact of a poor diet on people’s health so weren’t aware there was an issue to address.
“Staff weren’t consistently applying person-centred approaches to supporting people with a learning disability.
"This often resulted in people becoming distressed as staff didn’t take their individual needs into account or even recognise people were showing signs of distress.
"Leaders also weren’t supporting staff to learn from these incidents by using them to make improvements in the quality of care people were receiving.
“Harvey Lane wasn’t a safe or dignified place for people to live. Leaders hadn’t taken action to address serious safety hazards including mould in people’s bathrooms, fire doors that didn't close properly; and chemical products left out within people’s reach, all putting them at risk of harm.
“We found a poor culture at Harvey Lane where people didn't have full control or decision-making power in their lives.
"The leaders weren’t supporting staff to empower people to do things on their own, and they hadn’t put good systems in place to make sure people’s voices were heard.
"Also, we weren't confident that people were getting the help they needed from staff for their health.
"The staff often weren’t aware they needed to involve other external professionals, meaning people didn't always get the support they needed in a timely manner or at all.
“We’ll be monitoring the service closely, including through future inspections, to make sure these improvements are carried out and that people are safe whilst this is happening. If we’re not assured people are receiving safe, person-centred care, we won’t hesitate to take further action.”
A spokesperson for Consensus Support Services said:
“Nothing is more important to us than the safety and wellbeing of the people we support and we take feedback from the CQC extremely seriously.
“It is clear that, in this case, we have not met the standards that the people we support and their families expect and deserve from us, and we would like to again apologise to them.
“As the report notes, we took immediate action after the initial inspection, including addressing some environment issues and reviewing risk assessments and training for staff on the concerns raised by CQC. We are working closely with the Local Authority and are pleased that they have noted the immediate improvements made.
“We look forward to welcoming the CQC back in due course and in the meantime we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that improvements made are embedded and lessons are learnt so that we can provide the highest standards of safe, responsible, and person-centred support.”