Braintree: St Mary's Court 'requires improvement' in report

St Mary’s Court in Bocking has received a “requires improvement” grading from the government agency, Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The care home, which provides respite, residential, dementia, nursing, and palliative care, was rated requires improvement in the safe, effective, responsive, and well-led categories.

However, it did achieve a ‘good’ rating in the caring category.

The report said: “The provider had not always assessed risks to people's health and safety or mitigated risks when identified.

“People’s care did not always reflect their personal preferences and the provider had not appropriately assessed, monitored, or reviewed people’s capacity to make decisions about their care.

“Governance systems and audits were not effective in identifying or addressing areas for improvement.”

Throughout the assessment, the CQC also spoke with ten residents of the home and 20 relatives.

The CQC received feedback saying that the home “did not always provide good quality, safe care which met people’s needs and preferences.”

A change in staffing and a lack of staff being available when support is needed was noted in the report.

Relatives told the CQC they had not always been informed about changes in the service or the impact this may have on their loved ones.

Staff - St Mary's Court workers previously celebrating a GSF Platinum Accreditation (Image: Sonnet Care)

In response to the report, a spokesman for St Mary’s Court said: "The safety and wellbeing of our residents is always our first priority. 

“As a responsible care provider, our staff work hard every day to enhance the lives of our residents by bringing them joy, happiness, and fulfilment and we are very sorry that on this occasion, the high standards that we hold ourselves to were not met.

As the report itself recognises, we were already taking immediate and decisive action to address improvements and are assured that these continue to be sustained.

“We were extremely pleased to see that the CQC acknowledged that they, “observed people receiving safe care from staff during the assessment, with no safeguarding concerns identified” and that “no concerns were identified with staff practices during observations.” 

“Importantly, our residents and relatives also commented on the progress made and when approached by the CQC, confirmed 'recent improvements had been made in the service with a more stable management team now in place and more permanent staff recruited'.

“We are working closely with our staff, our residents, and community partners to provide assurance that improvements already made are sustained for the future.

“We are confident that we will achieve an overall rating of good at our next CQC inspection.”