A Bolton care home has said it is 'working closely with' the CQC after the body judged it as requiring improvement.

The rating was recently given to Mill View Care Home on Bridgeman Street, Great Lever, following an inspection on August 16.

While the home was rated 'good' for being effective, caring and responsive, it 'requires improvement' for being safe and well-led.

Though at their last inspection they rated the 'safe' criteria as good, changing to requires improvement means "some aspects of the service were not always safe and there was limited assurance about safety", as well as "an increased risk that people could be harmed."

The report states: "Medicines were not always managed safely. We found some medicines had not been administered as prescribed. 

"Medicines were not always available to be administered. For one person we found the district nurse had been unable to administer a medicine as it was not available in the home.

"Staff were not accurately recording when thickened fluids were being given to people at risk of choking or aspiration."

It adds: "The provider used a system for determining how many staff were needed based on people's assessed care needs.

"Although staff were deployed in line with this system, the system did not account for other tasks the care staff were expected to do, for example facilitate daily activities, due to only having one activity coordinator for the entire home.

"People, relatives and staff provided mixed feedback about staffing levels, with some telling us there was enough, whilst others stated more were required to meet needs." 

Regarding being well-led, the report says: "The service management and leadership was inconsistent. Leaders and the culture they created did not always support the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care." 

A spokesperson from Mill View Care Home said: "The safety and wellbeing of our residents is always our priority, and we welcome the scrutiny that comes from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

"In this latest report it was pleasing to hear that residents spoke positively about the home and that they, and their families, would recommend Mill View.

"We do acknowledge that a small number of improvements were required following this inspection and we have already implemented a quality improvement action plan to address these, particularly around governance and record keeping.

"We continue to work closely with the CQC, and we look forward to evidencing these upgrades in the weeks and months ahead." 

The full report is available on CQC's website.