Many residents at an Albion Park nursing home do not feel safe due to the “intrusive and aggressive” behaviour of other residents, while others suspect staff of stealing their personal items.
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These are just two of the damning findings contained in a federal government agency report into Ridgeview Aged Care which was released this week.
The home met just eight of the expected 44 national standards of care after an audit by the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency (AACQA) in June. The home’s accreditation as a provider of aged care services will be revoked in seven weeks unless it meets all standards.
According to the AACQA report, several areas of health and personal care were lacking at the home.
Medication was “not managed safely or correctly” with staff administering prescribed medications without the supervision of a registered nurse.
Pain management was also not sufficient, with residents “not as free as possible from pain” and the effectiveness of analgesia not adequately monitored.
Alarmingly the report found that “care recipients do not receive adequate nourishment or hydration” and that unexpected weight loss of some residents had not been managed.
Meantime the audit team found insufficient monitoring of wound care, while the incidence of skin tears was high. They also discovered “many incidents of injury sustained from manual handling”.
Of concern in a facility housing residents with dementia and with other high care needs, the home failed to meet standards in ‘behavioural management’.
“The needs of care recipients with challenging behaviours are not management effectively,” the report stated. “… There has been care recipient/ representative feedback about the impact of wandering, intrusive and aggressive behaviours of other care recipients.”
Ridgeview’s compliance with regulatory requirements was unsatisfactory in many aspects.
“Discretion not to report to the authorities has been exercised in relation to care recipient to care recipient elder abuse incidents, even though conditions have not been met to be able to do so,” the report stated. “It was not demonstrated that the organisation is prepared to respond in the event of a notifiable data breach as per privacy law.”
Meantime AACQA found that management was not working to provide a safe and comfortable environment for its residents.
“Call bell response time data shows lengthy delays in responding to calls for assistance,” the report stated. “Bedrails are being used, including as physical restraint, without risk assessment and mitigation for care recipient safety.
“… Care recipients / representations report care recipients’ personal items are going missing and they suspect theft by staff.”
Ridgeview staff are receiving additional training as part of a range of measures to get the facility up to standard.
A spokesperson for Christadelphian Aged Care, which runs the facility, said management would work with the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency (AACQA) to meet all 44 expected standards.
If it fails to make the grade, its accreditation will be revoked on October 4.
According to the My Aged Care website, the Albion Park facility met all 44 standards after routine re-accreditation audits in 2011, 2015 and as recently as last November.
However a surprise visit earlier this year led to the AACQA team conducting a full audit from June 4 to 13.
“Christadelphian Aged Care is continuing to work closely with the quality agency and Department of Health to ensure all issues raised are addressed as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.
“As always, the well being of our residents is our absolute priority, and we have increased staff training and expanded our clinical advisory team to ensure all our residents receive the highest standard of care.”
Ridgeview is one of 10 facilities in NSW, and one in Queensland, run by Christadelphian Aged Care.
It’s the fourth Illawarra aged care facility which has failed to meet AACQA standards in the past 16 months.
A “serious risk decision” was made against Marco Polo at Unanderra on March 20, after an AACQA review found it met just 30 of the 44 outcomes of the national accreditation standards. The facility has since “remedied the non-compliance” according to the My Aged Care website.
Meantime Hillside at Figtree and the Garrawarra Centre at Waterfall have regained full accreditation after failing to meet the accreditation standards in April 2017 and May 2017 respectively.