A Unanderra aged care home may have placed the “safety, health or well-being” of residents at “serious risk” according to a federal government agency.
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The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency (AACQA) has notified the Department of Health of the risk at Marco Polo aged care facility, and will continue to monitor the performance of the service through unannounced visits.
The serious risk decision was made on March 20, following an audit of the Waples Road facility earlier that month.
The five-day investigation found Marco Polo met just 30 of the 44 expected outcomes of the national accreditation standards.
The facility stands to lose its approval as an aged care provider, if it does not meet all 44 standards by October 31.
The damning report, available on AACQA’s website, details the areas where the home failed in its care. These include the important areas of clinical care, pain management and skin care.
“Care recipients are not receiving appropriate clinical care. Care plans do not reflect care recipients’ current condition or care needs,” the report stated.
“All care recipients are not as free as possible from pain. … Pain is not being monitored and/or managed effectively.
“Skin injury prevention is not effective and care recipients’ skin is at risk of injury and/or is being injured. Care recipients’ wounds are not being managed effectively.”
At the time of the audit, 164 residents (including 149 high-care recipients) were at the facility which contains a 13-bed dementia-specific unit.
Despite those high needs, the facility did not meet the standards for behavioural management.
“The needs of care recipients with challenging behaviours are not managed effectively,” the report stated.
“Restraint authorities and procedures are not always followed in alignment with the organisation’s policies or government guidelines.
“Incidents of aggression by care recipients to others are not being followed up in a timely manner to prevent recurrence.”
The report went on to state: “It has not been demonstrated all clinical and care staff are competent in manual handling. Manual handling incidents are occurring resulting in injury to care recipients”.
Residents’ right to privacy and dignity was also unmet according to the assessment team: “Each care recipient’s right to privacy, dignity and confidentiality is not being recognised and respected”.
The facility also failed to meet the expected standards in the areas of living environment as well as catering, laundry and cleaning services.
“The home’s management did not demonstrate they are providing a safe and comfortable environment consistent with care recipients’ care and living needs,” the report noted.
“Measures to ensure care recipient safety are not being applied in relation to bedrail use. Call bells are not consistently in reach of care recipients who require these to alert staff when they need assistance. Call bells are sometimes not being answered in a timely manner.”
Meantime a “significant number of care recipients and representatives” expressed their dissatisfaction with meals provide at the home.
Regulatory compliance, human resource management and education and staff development and continuous improvement were the remaining areas Marco Polo needed to improve.
“The organisation is not actively pursuing continuous improvement,” the report stated. “...The organisation’s management does not have systems in place to ensure compliance with all relevant legislation, regulatory requirements, professional standards and guidelines.”
In recent times, two other Illawarra aged-care facilities have been sanctioned for failing to meet AACQA standards.
Hillside at Figtree and the Garrawarra Centre at Waterfall have since regained full accreditation.
Marco Polo working hard to meet standards
Marco Polo manager Robert O’Shea said he was “shocked and disappointed” that the Unanderra facility had failed to fully comply with national standards.
However Mr O’Shea is confident that the aged care home will regain full accreditation well before the October 31 deadline.
“We are very disappointed that this has happened to us and we are working very hard to make certain that when the assessment team comes back, they will give us 44 gold stars,” Mr O’Shea said.
“While we would deny that any of our residents are at serious risk … we had already identified the areas of concern and had already started making the necessary improvements.”
These improvements included increased staff education and training as well as the appointment of additional senior staff.
“At the time of the audit we had just been through a few changes – for instance our very popular chef had just left and so residents reported that the food hadn’t been as good,” Mr O’Shea said. “Surveys since show the food is back where it should be.
“So we had started to redress many of these matters. Since the audit we have also put together a continuous improvement plan to ensure we achieve full compliance.”
Mr O’Shea said Marco Polo had achieved the standards set through the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency’s accreditation process in 2015, and 2012.
“While we failed to meet 14 expected outcomes in the recent audit, the quality agency did not revoke or put restraints on our accreditation because we do have such a good record,” he said.
He said residents and their representatives had been informed about the AACQA findings, and many had offered their support.
AACQA has placed the home on a timetable for improvement, and will undertake ongoing visits before a full re-accreditation audit is conducted later this year.
