A SANDIWAY care home ‘requires improvement’, a new report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said.

The CQC has published a further 74 reports on the quality of care provided by adult social care services across the north that have been inspected under its new approach.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s adult social care services are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

Sandiway Manor Residential Home, which is operated by The Cheshire Residential Homes Trust, was inspected on May 24 and 26, 2016.

The report said the care home required improvement in three categories: safe, responsive and well-led. It was rated ‘Good’ in the effective and caring categories.

However, it noted that while progress had been made in monitoring and ensuring the safety of the environment, the premises were not always ‘well-suited’ to patients suffering from dementia.

The report said: “For example, one person who enjoyed spending time in the garden had been able to leave the premises during a period of confusion, because there was nothing in place to prevent access to the busy road.

“Action had been taken to minimise the risk of this reoccurring by ensuring that staff were available to support this person whilst they were spending time in the garden.

“We recommend that the registered provider seek advice from a reputable source around current best practice on adapting the premises to accommodate the needs of people living with dementia.”

The report also found that medicine was occasionally overstocked.

It noted that action had been taken to improve the service, but said the overall rating can only be changed to ‘Good’ if the care home maintains the changes over time.

Debbie Westhead, CQC's Deputy Chief Inspector for Adult Social Care in the North, said: "People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care.

“If that is what we find on inspection – we give the service a rating of Good, or Outstanding.

"If we find that a service requires improvement, we will expect them to provide us with a full plan setting out how they will address the issue.

“We will share our findings with local commissioners, and we will return in due course to check that they have made the required improvements.

“Whenever we find a service to be Inadequate, we will take further action on behalf of the people who use the service."

Sandiway Manor Residential Home were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

Full reports on all 74 inspections are available at cqc.org.uk