Police investigate 'common assault' on 95-year-old at Horndean care home as it is put in ‘special measures’

Fieldgate Nursing Home in Horndean has received an inadequate rating from CQC inspectors who looked at the service after receiving concerns about the ‘management of people's nursing care needs, how people were protected from the risk of harm and abuse and a lack of leadership’.

The home, run by Extraservice Limited, received a rating of ‘requires improvement’ at its last inspection in December 2019 but CQC inspectors said the service ‘had deteriorated’ and was in ‘breach of multiple regulations’.

Inspectors were also notified about a police investigation, that was ongoing at the time of their visit in July, into an ‘unlicensed restraint' on a 95-year-old woman that amounted to ‘common assault’.

Police were unable to give an update to The News on the outcome of the investigation.

A police spokeswoman said: ‘We received a report on June 30 that between June 15 and 30 an unlicensed restraint had been used on a 95-year-old woman at Fieldgate Nursing Home, Horndean. This amounted to a common assault.’

Inspectors were also told about a number of incidents that had not been reported to the council or CQC and concluded that ‘people were not protected from the risk of abuse or avoidable harm’.

The report read: ‘Prior to our inspection we received information about incidents that put people at risk of harm and abuse.

‘For example, some people had sustained unexplained bruises, others had sustained injuries during moving and handling procedures and other people had lost a significant amount of weight.

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‘These incidents had only been recognised as safeguarding concerns by the interim managers and visiting professionals. Prior to this, these incidents had not been reported to the local authority or CQC as required.

‘We additionally found there was not a system in place for safeguarding incidents to be appropriately recorded, reported and investigated. This put people at continued risk of harm.’

The News approached Fieldgate Nursing Home for comment.

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