Health Watchdog Finds Kent Care Home Residents ‘At Risk of Harm’

A health watchdog has placed a Kent care home under special measures, citing that its residents faced “risk of harm”. Shore Lodge, located in Dartford, which caters to individuals with autism or learning disabilities, underwent an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in June. A report released on Friday determined the facility’s overall operation to be “inadequate”. The CQC concluded that the home, managed by the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity, had failed to address three warning notices issued in March, which had called for “immediate action” to rectify its deficiencies. Categories including effectiveness, responsiveness, and caring were all assessed as “requiring improvement”. The watchdog’s report indicated that: “[Residents] continued to be at risk of harm and [Shore Lodge] had failed to investigate thoroughly and act on incidents and accidents.” Furthermore, the CQC noted that there had been no “improvement in the level of support people were receiving”. Serena Coleman, the CQC’s deputy director of operations in the south, commented: “Shore Lodge’s leaders weren’t investigating incidents or taking action to learn from them and stop them happening again. “Although they told us they had received training, staff weren’t always able to identify safeguarding incidents or feel comfortable raising concerns.” Ms Coleman provided an instance where a resident broke a glass photo frame in their room overnight. Despite the night staff reporting the event, day staff found the following morning that the glass had not been cleared, and the individual had sustained cuts. She further stated: “CQC also had to tell the registered manager to refer this incident to the local authority as they hadn’t done so.” Ms Coleman urged for “rapid and widespread improvements”, while assuring that the CQC would “continue to monitor closely Shore Lodge residents to keep them safe”. A representative for Leonard Cheshire stated that the organization did not believe the CQC’s report “in any way reflects the situation at the service now and we have requested a return visit”. They also mentioned that the regulator had received fortnightly updates on “how the service had moved forward” since June, emphasizing that the “safety and wellbeing of [residents] remains our ongoing priority”.