A HAMPSHIRE care home slammed by a watchdog for “unacceptable” failings still requires improvement but has shown some improvement – according to the latest report.

A fresh inspection has shown that improvements have been made at Ashley Manor Nursing Home since the previous visit uncovered a catalogue of failings.

But the Care Quality Commission (CQC) says more must be done at the home in Shedfield, which has been rated as requiring improvement in all areas.

Last year, the home was placed into special measures by the CQC after an inspection revealed staff shortages and dirty conditions.

The home was rated “inadequate” due to a shortage of staff to meet residents’ needs, with inspectors observing that on one occasion at meal time all staff left to go on their break at once, leaving people at risk if they needed their support.

The CQC said residents’ food and fluid intake were “not monitored to ensure people had sufficient fluid and dietary intake to meet their needs”, which “put people at risk of dehydration or malnutrition”, while police officers took away medicines after the home was found to be in breach of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

At the time the CQC’s interim deputy chief inspector, Deborah Ivanova, said: “This woeful shortfall in standards at Ashley Manor Nursing Home is unacceptable.”

But a fresh inspection this summer has shown the home has made improvements across the board.

A new report said standards at the home were clean and that people’s health needs were met, while “people were supported to maintain a balanced diet and received the support they required during meal times”.

But it also identified areas where the home must improve further, with the facility rated as requiring improvement in safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness and leadership.

Inspectors said that “although staff understood people’s risks and how to keep them safe, people’s care plans and daily records were not always up to date and completed when people received their care”, with plans and daily records not always including all of the information required “in order to keep people safe or to judge whether people had received the care they required”.

Staff had received a variety of different training since the previous inspection and now received better guidance, but records showed its nurses still needed specialist training in areas such as fall awareness, use of syringe drivers and the prevention of choking, with inspectors saying “there was a risk if the service was to admit people with increasingly complex nursing needs nurses might not have the skills to support them effectively”.

While residents told the inspectors the day staff treated them with respect and kindness, they felt improvements could be made in the night staff, with one person saying the “night staff are not so good, they don’t know people”, although others said they were polite.

Andy Andrews, co-director at Ashley Manor, said: “We had such a bad report way back in August last year, they identified a number of things we had to improve and we have been working on things since then.

“The majority of things have been improved on and we have gone beyond that, but they now want us to provove that what we have done what have done is not just to get through the inspection, but to sustain it.“Our aim is to go for the good rating.”