A CARE home rated as ‘inadequate’ gave a resident medicine they were allergic to, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has revealed.
Camberwell Green Care Home closed its doors in October after provider HC-One said the building was too expensive to manage.
As residents were in the process of being rehoused it was revealed in a report by health watchdog, the CQC, that the home had put residents at “serious risk.”
The report, produced after an inspection in December, found the care home particularly suffered from ‘poor medicines management’.
It stated: “We saw two entries on a person’s care record stating that they were allergic to penicillin.
“We found that they had been prescribed and nurses administered a medicine containing penicillin for five days. The person could have experienced serious harm because of this.”
Other breaches found related to ‘safeguarding people from abuse and improper treatment’, ‘safe care and treatment’, ‘meeting nutritional and hydration needs’, and ‘good governance and staffing’.
Southwark Council placed an embargo on the care home more than a year ago, preventing more elderly people from registering until its standards improved.
Its rating dropped from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’ after a CQC inspection in September 2015.
A spokesperson for HC-One confirmed to the News that the reason for the closure of the home was that the layout of the building made it “hard to provide a high standard of care” for its residents, as rooms were spread across four floors and the building had limited communal and outdoor space.
Following the final closure of the home, a HC-One spokesperson said: “During the transition period, we worked closely with Southwark Council, local health authorities, and the regulator, to ensure all residents found nearby care homes which meet their individual needs. Everyone has now been safely transferred.
“During the closure process, the CQC raised a number of concerns with us. In response we took immediate action to ensure this feedback was addressed.
“The health, safety and wellbeing of the individuals we support are our top priorities.”
Last year, Liberal Democrat councillor Maria Lyndforth-Hall told the News that a council embargo on three out of nine care homes in Southwark was leading to a ‘care home crisis’, where residents needed to be moved outside of the borough for proper care.
The embargo on Burgess Park and Tower Bridge, which is also run by HC-One, have now been lifted by Southwark Council.
