SCOTLAND'S three worst performing care homes have been threatened with closure after a series of unannounced inspections.
They found residents' festering bed sores were not treated in one centre while in another property, residents in acute pain were denied medicines. In one of the privately-run homes, faeces was found on a tablecloth.
Staff in all three were under-trained in even the basics of care for older people, such as how to treat people with dementia, the Care Inspectorate said.
The homes were given the lowest possible grading on every aspect of care.
The Livingston Nursing Home in West Lothian, Highview House Care Home in Inverness, and Avondale Nursing Home in Motherwell, all received a grading of one on a scale of one to six and were described as unsatisfactory.
The facilities were identified this week by the inspectorate as the current three worst preforming homes in Scotland. The results prompted anger from politicians who said families deserve better.
Two staff at the Livingston home have been charged by police over alleged standards, and care inspectors criticised performance in areas ranging from continence management to cleanliness.
At Avondale, inspectors wit-nessed unsafe moving procedures, found "overpowering" odours from clinical waste bins and said the kitchen was not fit for purpose.
The inspectorate backed 21 complaints in the last two years about Highview. The report said one resident waited 90 minutes for a nurse after calling for help.
Inspectors visit all 897 homes in Scotland at least once a year but conduct repeated visits at the poorest performing facilities.
The inspectorate said Highview House Care Home had had an improvement notice and its suspension on new admissions lifted, but a ban on new residents remains in Livingston and Motherwell. All three face closure if they fail to improve.
Highview is expected to improve when the next round of reports are published. The grading system for inspections can change through the year as they are carried out.
Annette Bruton, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: "Most care homes and nurseries in Scotland perform well, with less than 1% falling into the lowest grade. Those services must improve fast or face closure because every person has the right to high-quality, safe and compassionate care.
"Our system of robust, unannounced inspections means problems can be picked up early and the right support put in."
Jackson Carlaw, health spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: "It is completely unacceptable for care homes to be registering such appalling results. How a facility can be judged unsatisfactory in every area is astonishing, and when it happens severe and immediate action must be taken."
Rhoda Grant, Scottish Labour's wellbeing spokeswoman, said the results were "disgraceful."
A spokesman for Four Seasons Healthcare, which owns the Livingston home, said an improvement plan had been put in place and "all residents have been offered the opportunity to transfer to a different care environment but have declined".
A spokeswoman for Avondale said the inspectorate's findings were "taken very seriously" and it was "confident the home is making good progress".
Highview took "immediate action" and a spokeswoman said it had had "a verbal confirmation of the improvement of its next grades".
Scottish Care, which represents independent social care services in Scotland, said failures in standards are of "deep concern".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article