A WINCHESTER care home failed to ensure people’s safety and meet individual needs of residents, an inspection by the care watchdog has found.

Bereweeke Court Care Home was home to 30 residents when the Care Quality Commission (CQC) made an unannounced visit in November last year.

The body rated the facility as ‘requires improvement’ overall and for each of its inspection areas including safety, effectiveness, responsiveness and whether the home was caring and well-led.

The care home provides nursing and residential dementia care for up to 50 people, but inspectors said in their report that there were “insufficient numbers of experienced staff deployed at all times to ensure people’s safety.”

It continued: “Staff had not undertaken all the training they needed to keep their skills and knowledge up to date. Care plans did not consistently cover all the required areas or contain an appropriate level of detail to support staff to deliver effective care or to meet identified needs.”

Over the course of their visit inspectors observed a number of failures in care including two people eating meals in positions that increased their risk of choking and a number of mattresses which were being used to prevent skin damage and were not being set correctly.

People were also not being “provided with sufficient opportunities to take part in meaningful activities”, with a very limited programme of planned activities.

These were all deemed as breaches by the CQC, with the home required to take action.

During their visit inspectors also witnessed that care was often given with little interaction between staff members and residents.

The report said: “Care was often task focussed and there was limited interaction with people outside of completing care tasks. Staff told us they did not have time for this. We were not assured that people’s individual preferences and needs were being met.”

The home was rated ‘good’ during its previous inspection in 2017.

A spokesperson for the home said: “The health, safety and wellbeing of our residents is our number one priority, and we take all feedback from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) very seriously.

“While we were heartened by the CQC finding that our staff are ‘kind and caring’ and that residents are treated with respect, we acknowledge that there are areas for improvement, which our team is working tirelessly to address.

“We have a comprehensive action plan in place, and its implementation is being overseen by our senior regional team and an experienced turnaround manager. Additionally, our learning and development team is supporting colleagues to make sure they have completed our bespoke and comprehensive training programme.

“We are pleased that we have already made positive progress at the home, including reducing the number of agency staff we use. We have also updated the care plans for all residents to ensure that we can deliver high-quality, kind care to meet their needs.

“We are working closely with all relevant authorities and have already made significant progress since the CQC visited. We are determined to continue making improvements and to ensure that these are sustained.”