MANAGERS at a care home failed to act after a staff member reported a colleague for deliberately ‘ill treating’ a resident, a report says.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said a staff member had reported a colleague for the alleged mistreatment of the resident in early 2017 at Lent Rise Care Home in Coulson Way, Burnham.

But it said bosses only initiated procedures – and suspended the staff member – after being questioned why they had done nothing by the CQC itself. An investigation against the staff member is continuing and emerged in the latest CQC report which rated the care home ‘inadequate’.

The report followed an unscheduled inspection in early January, which coincided with a safeguarding investigation by Thames Valley Police, in which they were attempting to determine if any criminal wrongdoing had been committed.

The report said the inspection had been partly prompted by a “large number of allegations about unexplained harm to people who used the service”.

Its investigation uncovered that more than half of the staff at the facility had not completed training regarding how to safely handle vulnerable people, or that their training had expired.

The CQC reported that a environmental health officer inspected the facility in August 2017 and awarded it a score of one out of five, citing 26 failings – many of which required immediate attention. However, the CQC observed that “poor food preparation, and hygiene, meant people faced continued risks of harm”.

The watchdog also found that the care home failed to order medicines on time and was frequently out of stock, in addition to storing them at unsafe temperatures.

The report included testimony from the family of residents, some of whom said their relatives’ health had deteriorated at Lent Rise. One person said her relative “has lost a lot of weight since she came here”.

They said: “One carer came up to (her) one day and hauled (her) out of the chair.Since Friday (she) has been non weight-bearing.”

Amongst the staff, the CQC noted a ‘negative workplace culture’, recording that staff were uncomfortable raising issues with management. and did not always know who was managing the service, in addition to a schism between the permanent and agency staff.

Lent Rise is now in special measures, meaning it has to be re-inspected in around six months. If it does not make significant improvements, the Fremantle Trust could be stopped from running it.

Chief executive of Fremantle, Steve Flanagan, said: “We promptly appointed a turnaround specialist with a wealth of clinical experience who is overseeing the implementation of a detailed action plan, created in agreement with the CQC.

“This addresses the specific issues raised in the inspection.”