The Conservative opposition on Bath and North East Somerset Council has called for the resignations of the Council leader and members responsible for social services, after a damning report into Keynsham's Charlton House, a Council-run care home, reports LDRS John Wimperis.

People living in Keynsham’s Charlton House care home suffered “avoidable harm” with instances of unexplained bruising, one resident not eating for days, and another being left sat in urine overnight, according to the report by the Care Quality Commission. The care home was placed in special measures.

Leader of the Conservative group on the Council, Vic Pritchard, said: “My heart goes out to all the residents of Charlton House and their families, who must be desperately upset to hear how their loved ones have been treated.

“The findings of this harrowing CQC report are extremely distressing. It is simply unacceptable that such poor levels of care are being administered at Charlton House, and I hope big improvements are made as a matter of urgency.”

The care home has been run by the Council since 2020, when previous operator Sirona handed it and two other care homes back to the Council after a months-long industrial dispute with staff.

Mr Pritchard said: “If the Liberal Democrat administration still intends to bring social care services back in-house at a time when we are experiencing raging inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and the difficulties of hospital discharges, we need immediate reassurance that the horrors we have found at Charlton House are not replicated elsewhere.

“To make matters worse, inspectors who visited Charlton House earlier this year asked for improvements to be made. Not only have these failed to materialise, but the service has deteriorated.

“Charlton House is owned by the Council. The leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Adult Services, therefore, are directly responsible for ensuring the residents are properly cared for. On this, they have failed catastrophically and must resign immediately.”

Alison Born, who shares the role ofCabinet Member for Adult Services and Council house building, said: “It was clear from the start that these previously contracted out services were struggling and required investment. The Council has responded by increasing management and leadership capacity, investing in staff training, increasing pay and upgrading the estate to raise standards.

“However, this work has been taking place against the backdrop of the pandemic and Brexit, both of which have had a huge impact on the number of staff available to work in social care. While we have taken measures to improve recruitment such as our local “Proud to Care” campaign, innovative work with the RUH and through the creation of a specialist social care recruitment post, we remain more reliant on the use of agency staff than we would choose.

“As part of the post pandemic recovery of the local health and care system, we had repurposed some beds at Charlton House as Discharge to Assess (DtoA) beds to help improve the flow of patients from the RUH and had to use agency staff to maintain that capacity. These DtoA beds placed additional pressure on the service at Charlton House as it was managing more turnover and more complexity of needs. More capacity was put in to support the additional work but the team was also struggling to recruit to permanent leadership posts in the service.”

She added: “It is worth noting that the safeguarding alerts that prompted the CQC inspection of Charlton House came from our own staff within the service who recognised that there were some problems with care and who rightly raised the alerts.

“We are working with the CQC to address the issues identified and have regrettably had to close some of the beds at Charlton House — including the DtoA beds — to bring bed numbers down to match our permanent staffing capacity. We have raised concerns about some of the agency staff provided with their employers and will re-open beds at Charlton House only as recruitment allows.

“This has been a difficult time for staff at Charlton House and for the adult social care team. They have worked throughout the pandemic and are currently re-doubling their efforts to improve the quality of care at Charlton House, to ensure that all the resident are provided with good care at all times.

“The team have a robust improvement plan and the learning is being applied across our provider services which will all benefit from the new systems and protocols. I am very grateful for the team’s commitment and dedication to partnership working across the health and care system and to improving the quality of the services provided.”

Leader of the Council, Kevin Guy, said: “Councillor Born and the adult social care team are doing a great job in the toughest of financial times. The fact that these issues were raised internally by the Council’s own checks and balances proves the system works and these concerns are being addressed.

“Unlike the Tories, we Liberal Democrats do not sweep problems under the carpet; we deal with them openly. Next May, local voters have a clear choice when it comes to adult social care.”

He added: “My simple message is do not trust the Tories with our care system.”

The CQC will inspect the care home again after six months to see if it has demonstrated improvement.

LDRS, John Wimperis