The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated Care @ Rainbow's End in Shelford inadequate, and placed it in special measures following an inspection in May

A care home has been rated inadequate and placed into special measures.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated Care @ Rainbow's End in Shelford inadequate, and placed it in special measures following an inspection in May.

Care @ Rainbow's End is a residential care home providing personal care for up to five people with a learning disability.

The inspection was carried out to check if improvements had been made following the previous inspection. Inspectors looked at the areas of safe, effective, and well-led.

Following the inspection, the overall rating for the home, as well as the areas of safe, effective, and well-led, went down from requires improvement to inadequate.

The service has been placed in special measures which means it will be kept under review and, if CQC do not propose to cancel the provider's registration, there will be a re-inspection within six months to check for significant improvements.

Rebecca Bauers, CQC’s director for people with a learning disability and autistic people said: “When we inspected Care @ Rainbow’s End, it was concerning to see a deterioration in the quality of care being provided and find several areas that continued to be a risk to people’s safety and welfare.

“Leaders must now focus their attention on making the necessary improvements and making the culture in the service a more positive one to ensure people receive a better standard of care.

“Staff still weren’t meeting people's basic care and support needs due to lack of appropriate training. For example, staff hadn’t been trained in Makaton (a form of sign language) despite people living at the service using this communication method.

“We were told about incidents where staff were unsure of how to support people when they became distressed and agitated and had used restraint rather than less restrictive measures. This needs addressing as a matter of urgency.

“We found continued environmental risks which could place people at harm.

“For example, there was a fault with the fire safety system and hot water in the building had temperatures over the recommended safe range when we last inspected and this still hadn’t been fixed which placed people at risk of being scolded.

“In addition, hygiene and infection prevention and control wasn’t being followed effectively throughout the home.

“People’s mobility equipment was visibly dirty, and bathrooms contained mould and limescale.

“We will continue to monitor the service closely to ensure significant and urgent improvements are made. If we are not assured people are receiving safe care, we will not hesitate to take further enforcement action to ensure people are receiving the high standard of care they deserve.”

Inspectors found:

• Staff didn’t understand when a safeguarding needed to be reported to the appropriate authority.
• There was no effective governance system in place to monitor the quality of the service provided to people.
• People were being supported by staff who hadn’t been appropriately trained.
• Individual risks weren’t always assessed or managed well which placed people at risk of harm.
• Staff weren’t supporting people in line with legislation, good practice, and their training.
• The provider continued to fail to recognise risks and concerns in relation to health and safety, safeguarding, completing records and medicine management.

The BT callminder service said no-one was available to speak to at the home when the Advertiser rang yesterday, and nobody has responded to the message left.