A CARE home in Mapplewell has been served a warning notice by health inspectors who found staff were not always respectful of people’s privacy and dignity.

Chapel View Care Home, on Spark Lane, was visited by inspectors from the Care Quality Commission and was found to require improvement in all areas.

Residents and their families said staff were kind and caring, but inspectors had ‘serious concerns’ about the lack of respect some staff showed for people’s privacy and dignity.

An inspection report stated: “From our observations, we concluded this was due to a lack of awareness rather than any intention to cause upset to people.”

On two occasions, staff pulled the bedclothes off people who were in bed in their rooms, exposing them without their consent or without asking.

One relative told inspectors there had been times when they had noticed faeces under their relative's nails. During the inspection, inspectors found one person had faeces under their nails on two separate occasions. It was noted in the records this resident had a tendency for soiled nails, and they were immediately supported to wash their hands.

Some interactions showed a lack of understanding and knowledge of care for people living with dementia, and ‘derogatory and judgemental’ language was used to describe people in handover meetings - with one being described as ‘noisy’ and another as ‘not too shouty’ during the night.

Inspectors also found some parts of the home were not clean. This included mouldy grout, a stained hoist and sling, dirt on radiators inside covers, and a smelly sluice room. There were also concerns about the water in people’s rooms being too hot for handwashing. This was resolved by the end of the inspection.

The report said there were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs, but some accidents and incidents had not been recorded, and care plans did not always contain sufficient detail to inform staff how to support residents safely.

A warning notice was served to the service provider, regarding staff being respectful of people’s privacy and dignity. This must have improved by February.

Karen Sinclaire, home manager, said: “I would like to assure our clients that we are working closely with the CQC and the local authorities to address the deficiencies outlined by this report.

“We take this report very seriously. As usual we will take rapid action to address any concerns and maintain our record of delivering high-quality care. Caring is at the centre of everything we do and our residents’ continued custom and glowing feedback is testament to the quality of care we deliver.

“I am glad that the CQC has recognised amongst other things the thought and effort that has gone into updating our environment, our robust staff training, our high quality of food and our variety of person centred activities.”

Aditya Jain, director, said “Against a backdrop of austerity, we have invested heavily in effective and high-quality processes to underpin the delivery of care. We continue to implement these systems to demonstrate our effectiveness.

“We are proud to be able to demonstrate our ability of providing care through engaging our local community in the form of the ‘Hear my Voice’ Poetry project and our partnership with our local football club. I am glad that during the inspection CQC recognised that measures were already being implemented to further improve our services including but not limited to leveraging technology to better our effectiveness.

“We look forward to inviting reassessment by the CQC inspectors and show them the changes that we have made and are continuing to make.”