Bognor care home placed into special measures

United Response, in Burnham Avenue, which provides care for people with learning disabilities, has been rated inadequate overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

United Response, a national charity, has sincerely apologised to the people it supports and said an action plan of improvements was already in place.

In a report just published following an inspection in August, inspectors found: “There was a systemic failure in areas of the service, which led to people being in receipt of poor quality care.”

It stated that the registered manager had officially left in August, ‘but had been absent from managing the service in the four months prior to this’.

The report said: “The provider had a lack of insight into the previous registered manager’s and area manager’s failure to follow their processes. This meant that all aspects of the service were failing and people were not always receiving their planned care.

“The provider’s systems and processes designed to monitor the quality of the service were not always followed.

“Internal audits and checks did not identify issues which were affecting people’s safety and wellbeing.

“The response by the provider to any issues that were identified was inadequate and did not improve the service.”

The inspection identified a ‘number of regulatory breaches’, leading to the overall rating of inadequate and the care home being placed into special measures.

The home, which cares for five people with learning disabilities, will be inspected again within six months and will be expected to have made ‘significant improvements within this time frame’.

United Response said: “We sincerely apologise to the people we support and their families for not providing the high quality support we always strive to achieve.

“We take the findings of all CQC inspections extremely seriously. This is the first overall service rating of inadequate we have received, so immediately following the inspection and prior to the written report being published, United Response had agreed and begun to implement an action plan of improvements that meets in full the requirements of the CQC.

“We are determined to actively improve the service within the agreed timescales; a number of improvements have already been achieved.”

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