A CARE home in Prestwich has once again been labelled ‘inadequate’ in a watchdog report after inspectors found several regulation breaches and problems with medication and infection control.

Nazareth House, which cares for up to 66 people suffering from dementia, remains under ‘special measures’ following the latest report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Inspectors found poor practice with staff using their personal protective equipment (PPE) incorrectly, putting the elderly residents at an increased risk of coronavirus infection.

Putting the residents at even greater risk, officials found “the registered manager had failed to ensure that visitors who needed to complete a lateral flow test had done so before visiting their relatives.”

Inspectors also expressed concern that pressure was not properly applied to various wounds and that pressure care was not exercised or escalated in the proper way, and that there were still “continued errors in the application of patch medication.”

The home’s record system was also found to be lacking, providing limited details on the home’s residents, failing to keep accurate account of complaints and showing that new staff had not completed the necessary competency checks.

The report added: “If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe, and there is still a rating of ‘inadequate’ for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures.

“This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to the cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions of the registration.”

Nazareth House was rated ‘inadequate’ in a previous report which found medicines were not stored correctly and administered to residents after they were out of date.

Nazareth Care Charitable Trust, run by the Sisters of Nazareth, has been approached for comment on the CQC's findings.