HAZELMERE Retirement Living in Winsford has been told it must improve its quality of care following an inspection.

Following a recent inspection by the Care Quality Commission, Hazelmere Extra Care Scheme ‘requires improvement’.

After giving the care provider a ‘good’ rating last year, CQC received concerns in relation to safe care, treatment and consent.

After the latest inspection, the service was considered by the inspector to not always be safe as risks to people were not always identified and where risks had been recognised they had not been fully mitigated against.

Handling of medicine also requires improvement as the service failed to ensure medicines were administrated safely and in line with instructions on people’s prescriptions.

Staff did demonstrate a good awareness of safeguarding, but incidents were not always recorded.

The inspector also said in the report that the service was not always effective.

The inspector said: “Staff told us that they offered people choices as to how their support was to be provided but that sometimes they had to make decisions for people.

“They said that this was where someone lacked capacity or where they could be putting themselves at risk.

“MCA assessments and 'best interests' decisions were not carried out for people who may have lacked capacity to make certain decisions for themselves.

“This meant records did not consistently show which decisions people could make, and which decisions needed to be made on their behalf in their best interests.

“People have the right to make decisions that others might think are unwise and should not automatically be labelled as lacking the capacity to make a decision.”

The inspector also revealed that the service is not always well led.

The inspector said: “The service did not measure and review the delivery of care, treatment and support against current guidance as polices were out of date and did not reflect current CQC regulations or best practice guidance.

“The medication policy was last reviewed in February 2016 but it had not been further updated to ensure that it met with national guidance (Managing medicines for adults receiving social care in the community.)

“In addition, risk assessments did not provide enough information to enable staff to provide safe care but this had not been identified by the management audits undertaken.

“We also found that some care plans and risk assessments had been dated incorrectly. This meant that they were not an accurate record of the care and support at a given time.”